Working with Vim

Recording and Playback

What other editors call macros, Vim calls recording. It is a way to record and playback a set of commands. A recording is simply saving the commands you type to a register.

Use qa to start recording to named register a. You will see in the bottom left corner recording @a.

You now perform the actions you want, and when done press q to stop recording.

Replay back the commands using @a, this replays everything you did while recording.

Use @@ to repeat the previous replay, you can combine with a count so 3@@ will repeat previous replay 3 times, or you can use 3@a to repeat.

Recording example

💡

Your macro just duplicates your commands, so make sure you end/start at the right spot. Basically, you want to start all macros at the start of a line, and end at the start of the next line. This helps when repeating.

Recording in Register

Since recording are saved to a register, and registers persist between Vim sessions. Your recordings persist between Vim sessions.

This allows you to see what is recorded by using the :registers command to view all registers. Additionally, if you copy the characters that make up a command to a register, you can replay them.

For example, copy the text oText from Register to a register and replay. Note: the o is for append after, it is the command to enter into INSERT mode.

Here's the example yanking the above text to register using "byy, confirming the text is there using :registers, and then replaying using @b. Notice, it is left in INSERT mode after replaying.

Recording example

See :help recording for Vim help documentation.