How to exit from vim
How to exit from vim
How to Vim Save/Vim Exit/Quit in Editor? [VIM Save and Exit]
Looking to save/exit[quit] a file in VIM Editor? This article will help you with VIM Save, VIM Exit/VIM Quit command to increase your productivity level by saving your time.
List of content you will read in this article:
Vim is one of the most reliable and powerful open-source text editors available for several operating systems. Commonly, the Vim text editor is also known as Vi. Initially, Bill Joy discovered this editor in the 1970s. At that time, Vi was short form for the visual editor.
Vim is an extremely fast and efficient UNIX text editor. It is also inclusive in Linux and macOS. You can feel free to write or edit text with the help of this tool via a command-line interface or as an application. There are ample features and commands associated with Vim. Here, we are going to learn about how to save Vim and exit Vim methods.
By default, For starters, when you launch vim the file opens in the command mode; tells you that you are not able to enter any new text, instead, you can edit or move the file.
If you wish to enter the text, switch on the insert mode. For that, you have to Press I and it will allow you to type any text in the file.
Save VIM/Exit VIM Editor [A Definitive Guide]
Method 1: How to save in vim and quit in Vim [Exit vim], follow the below-listed steps:
Step 1: Initially move to the command mode. To do that, press the ESC key
Step 2: Now, press colon. In the bottom left corner, it directs you to the prompt bar
Step 3: Type x and press enter. It will save vim and exit vim
Additionally, you can also accomplish this task by using a command. Take a look:
:wq
w = write (save)
q = quit
Now, there is another method to save in Vim editor, without exiting. Let us see how!
Method 2: If you want to save a file in vim and do not wish to exit in Vim, follow these steps:
Step 1: Press the ESC key to switch into the command mode
Step 2: Now, type colon. It takes you to the prompt bar as shown in the below-listed screenshots:
Step 3: Type w and now press Enter. This helps you to make changes in the file without exiting from the text editor
Besides, you can also rename files and to do so you have to follow the below-listed Linux command.
:w [newfilename]
Here is a screenshot for you.
How to Exit VIM without saving a file? [Quit VIM]
To execute this process we have to follow the below-given steps:
Step 1: You have to press the ESC key and you will move to the command mode.
Step 2: After that, you have to press colon to open the prompt bar
Step 3: Now, type q, and press enter to exit the text editor without saving any changes.
Take a look at the screenshot in which we have been listed below.
Conclusion
As we hope that you are now familiar with How to save vim and quit vim/exit vim editor? That have been listed above in the two methods. VIM editor has a lot of shortcuts to accomplish your work in very less time and it will increase your productivity level too. Every time an expert who is looking for shortcuts or to save a file or exit file should implement the above listed commands.
Also, if you think there can be any other methods to save a file or exit a file in vim editor, do let us know via comment box listed below.
How to Exit (Quit) Linux Vim/Vi editor
Home » SysAdmin » How to Exit (Quit) Linux Vim/Vi editor
Vim is a Linux text editor based on the older Vi editor. Vim is an enhanced version of Vi; many commands work for both Vi and Vim.
This guide will show you how to exit in the terminal or using a shortcut key.
Note: Some Linux distributions, such as Ubuntu 18.04 and 20.04, may come with the minimal version of Vim installed. Follow our guide to install the full version of Vim on Ubuntu.
Exit Vim in Terminal
To issue commands in Vi/Vim, switch to command mode.
1. Press the Esc key.
2. You should see the ––INSERT–– label vanish from the lower-left.
4. To exit Vi/Vim, type :q and hit Enter.
Note: Want to personalize your Vim interface and add syntax highlighting? Learn How to Change and Use Vim Color Schemes.
Exit Vim Using a Shortcut Key
In addition to command mode, Vim also has the option for shortcut keys:
More Command Options to Quit Vim
Here’s a list of commands for quitting Vim:
Note: Make sure to type a colon ( : ) first to signify a command. Use the Enter key to activate it.
You should now have several methods to exit Vi/Vim text editor. Next, learn other essential Vim commands.
How do I exit Vim?
I am stuck and cannot escape. It says:
But when I type that it simply appears in the object body.
13 Answers 13
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Hit the Esc key to enter «Normal mode». Then you can type : to enter «Command-line mode». A colon ( : ) will appear at the bottom of the screen and you can type in one of the following commands. To execute a command, press the Enter key.
You can also exit Vim directly from «Normal mode» by typing ZZ to save and quit (same as 😡 ) or ZQ to just quit (same as :q! ). (Note that case is important here. ZZ and zz do not mean the same thing.)
Pictures are worth a thousand Unix commands and options:
I draw this to my students each semester and they seem to grasp vi afterwards.
Vi is a finite state machine with only three states.
Upon starting, vi goes into COMMAND mode, where you can type short, few character commands, blindly. You know what you are doing; this isn’t for amateurs.
When you want to actually edit text, you should go to INSERT mode with some one-character command:
Now, answering the question: exiting.
You can exit vi from EX mode:
w and x accept a file name parameter. If you started vi with a filename, you need not give it here again.
At last, the most important: how can you reach EX mode?
From INSERT mode, you need to push ESC, i.e. the Escape button, going to COMMAND mode, and then: to go to EX mode.
If you are unsure, push ESC and that will bring you to command mode.
The robust method is ESC-:-x-Enter which saves your file and quits.
Before you enter a command, hit the Esc key. After you enter it, hit the Return to confirm.
Commands marked with ‘*’ are Vim-only (not implemented in Vi).
Safe-quit (fails if there are unsaved changes):
Prompt-quit (prompts if there are unsaved changes)
Write (save) changes and quit:
Discard changes and quit:
Press Return to confirm the command.
This answer doesn’t reference all Vim write and quit commands and arguments. Indeed, they are referenced in the Vim documentation.
Vim has extensive built-in help, type Esc :help Return to open it.
This answer was inspired by the other one, originally authored by @dirvine and edited by other SO users. I’ve included more information from Vim reference, SO comments and some other sources. Differences for Vi and Vim are reflected too.
How to temporarily exit Vim and go back
10 Answers 10
Trending sort
Trending sort is based off of the default sorting method — by highest score — but it boosts votes that have happened recently, helping to surface more up-to-date answers.
It falls back to sorting by highest score if no posts are trending.
Switch to Trending sort
Assuming terminal Vim on a flavor of *nix:
To suspend your running Vim
will suspend the process and get back to your shell
will resume (bring to foreground) your suspended Vim.
To start a new shell
Start a subshell using:
(as configured by)
to kill the shell and return to Vim.
You can switch to shell mode temporarily by:
If you are on a Unix system, Ctrl + Z will suspend Vim and give you a shell.
If you frequently need to go back and forth between shell and vim, probably what you really want is have only one vim instance in the shell, and use it to open any file in the workspace. If so, check this question. Once you set it up correctly, you can :sus or C-z to return to the shell, then just v or v to get back to vim.
And my answer is almost my daily routine.
If you’re using Neovim, you can do the following:
Just put in fg and go back to your most recently suspended program.
There are several ways to exit Vim and have everything the same when you return. There is very good documentation within Vim itself explaining the various ways this can be done. You can use the following command within vim to access the relevant help page: :help usr_21
To give you a brief summary, here are the different methods of quitting and returning with your session intact:
hakluke/how-to-exit-vim
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README.md
How to exit vim
Below are some simple methods for exiting vim.
For real vim (and hacking) tips, follow hakluke and tomnomnom on twitter.
The ps-less way using status files
The ps-less process tree way
The first contact way
Credit: @caseyjohnellis 
The lazy pythonic using shell way
The pythonic way
The pure perl way
The Rustacean’s way
The lazy rubist using shell way
The Colon-less way
vi will eventually exit
Locally (the cheaty, lazy way, why even bother):
The hardware way
Pull the plug out
The hardware expert way
Use VIMKiller! The most practical physical solution to all your VIM troubles. It only costs 500,000 USD!
The timeout way
Before running vim, make sure to set a timeout:
Never forget to set a timeout again:
Make sure to save regularly.
The Russian Roulette timeout way
When you want to spice things up a bit:
The Shoot First, Ask Questions Later way
The using vim against itself way (executing the buffer)
Open Vim to empty buffer and type:
The AppleScript way
Credit: @dbalatero In Mac terminal vi :
Replace «iTerm» with your terminal application of choice:
The Mac Activity Monitor way
The MacBook Pro Touch Bar way
Touch quit vim text in your touch bar
The Mac Terminal way
Press ⌘ + q > Click Terminate
The Passive Way
Walk away.
The Passive-Aggressive Way
. then walk away. (n.b. That’s a fork bomb, please don’t try at home.)
The Microsoft Way
The Client-Server way
Don’t run this, it could break your computer.
The layered Method
Bonus: still stuck if multiple vim instances are running
The epileptic Method
May the magnificent colors help you to forget the emotional damage caused by exiting vim!
The Abstinence Method
The Passive-Aggressive Abstinence Method
The shortest way
The suspend way
The Minimal, Open-Source way
NOTE: ONLY RUN THIS IF YOU REALLY, REALLY TRUST @Jbwasse2 TO RUN CODE ON YOUR COMPUTER
The Acceptance Way
Just stay in Vim 😊 🤘🏻
The Webmaster Way
If you run Vim in a docker container like:
then you would normally exit vim by stopping the associated container:
run vim as root and run this when you want to exit:
The even more Extreme Kernel Way
Warning, this may break your entire computer
The Android way
Close the Termux app.
The extreme Android way
Run vim inside Termux and run this when you want to exit:
The JavaScript way
The Kubernetes way
If you run Vim in Kubernetes pod like:
then you would normally exit Vim by deleting the associated Kubernetes pod:
The Vim inside of Vim inside of Vim inside of Vim. inside of Vim way
Let «automatic garbage collector» do it for you
Much like your favorite programming language, your OS has built-in garbage collector. It will close stuff for you, so you don’t have to.
Now it’s not your problem anymore. Process will close automatically upon next reboot/shutdown.
The Product Manager way
The Experienced Product Manager way
The spiritual way
Inside a tmux session:
Note that Ctrl+B is the default prefix. For different prefixes, the command must be adjusted accordingly.
The Mathematician’s way
Define yourself outside vim.