80 Vim Shortcuts for Linux

June 4, 2021Last Updated: March 10, 2022

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Editing Shortcuts
Cursor Movement Shortcuts
Visual Mode Shortcuts
Cut & Paste Shortcuts
Visual Commands Shortcuts
Search & Replace Shortcuts
Working with Files Shortcuts
Exit Shortcuts

Vim shortcuts have been a learning curve for me personally. Just mastering a few Vim shortcut keys has quickly led to greater productivity and achievements. You won’t need a mouse while moving around Vim. Because everything in Vim can be done with the help of Vim keyboard shortcuts.

List of Vim Shortcuts

Vim being a text editor you need to apply all your brainpower in coding rather than wasting it over how to use the mouse and keyboard simultaneously. Despite various rich text editors, familiarity with Vim will help every Linux user. Given below is the list of VIM shortcuts for Linux users. You can even download this list in the form of a PDF.

Editing Shortcuts

Action	Vim Shortcuts
Replace a single character	r
Join the line below to the current one	j
Change an entire line	cc
Change to the end of the word	cw
Change to the end of line	c$
Delete the character at the cursor and substitute text	s
Delete line at the cursor and substitute text	S
Transpose two letters	xp
Undo	u
Repeat the last command	.

Cursor Movement Shortcuts

Action	Vim Shortcut keys
Move left	h
Move down	j
Move up	k
Move right	l
Jump by the start of words	w
Jump by words	W
Jump to end of words	e
Jump to end of words no punctuation	E
Jump backwards by words	b
Jump backwards by words no punctuation	B
Start of line	0
First non-blank character of the line	^
End of line	$
Go To command	G
Start insert mode at the cursor	i
Insert at the beginning of the line	I
Append after the cursor	a
Append at the end of the line	A
Open blank line below the current line	o
Open blank line above the current line	O
Append at end word	ea
Exit insert mode	Esc

Read More: 70 ZBrush Shortcuts for Windows

Visual Mode Shortcuts

Action	Vim Shortcut keys
Start visual mode, mark lines, then do command	v
Start Linewise visual mode	V
Move to other ends of the marked area	o
Start visual block mode	Ctrl + V
Move to other corners of the block	O
Mark a word	aw
A () block	ab
A {} block	aB
Inner () block	ib
Inner {} block	iB
Exit visual mode	Esc

Cut & Paste Shortcuts

Action	Vim Shortcut keys
Yank (copy) a line	yy
Yank 2 lines	2yy
Yank word	yw
Yank to end of line	y$
Paste the clipboard after the cursor	p
Paste before cursor	P
Cut a line	dd
Cut the current word	dw
Cut current character	x

Visual Commands Shortcuts

Action	Vim Shortcut keys
Shift right	>
Shift left	<
yank marked text	y
Delete marked text	d
Switch case	~

Search & Replace Shortcuts

Action	Vim Shortcut keys
Search for pattern	/pattern
Search backward for pattern	?pattern
Repeat search in the same direction	n
Repeat search in the opposite direction	N
Replace all old with new throughout the file	:%s/old/new/g
Replace all old with new throughout file with confirmations	:%s/old/new/gc

Read More: 20 Putty Shortcuts for Windows

Working with Files Shortcuts

Action	Vim Shortcut keys
Edit a file in a new buffer	:e filename
Go to the next buffer	:bnext
Go to the previous buffer	:bprev
Delete a buffer	:bd
Open a file in a new buffer and split the window	:sp filename
Split windows	Ctrl + ws
Switch between windows	Ctrl + ww
Quit a window	Ctrl + wq
Split windows vertically	Ctrl + wv

Exit Shortcuts

Action	Vim Shortcut keys
Write (save) the file, but don’t exist	:w
Write (save) and quit	:wq
Quit (fails if anything has changed)	:q
Quit and throw away changes	:q!

Download Vim Shortcuts Cheat Sheet

Vim is a free, open-source and most popular text editor for Linux users. However, it is not everyone’s cup of tea to work with. You need to learn a variety of Vim shortcuts to get your hands on it. Emacs is another text editor that you work with instead of Vim. Have a look at the Emacs Shortcuts list here.