Updated April 9, 2025

This is a list of Vim commands I use often. A fair portion of the list is taken from this website, but I removed the commands I don’t find useful. I also updated many of the descriptions and added some of my own commands.

Cursor Movement

Command	Purpose
gk	Move cursor up by one line in multi-line text
gj	Move cursor down by one line in multi-line text
H	Jump to the line at the top of the screen
M	Jump to the line at the middle of the screen
L	Jump to the line at the bottom of the screen
w	Jump forward to the start of the next word (punctuation counts as a separate word)
b	Jump backward to the start of the previous word (punctuation counts as a separate word)
e	Jump forward to the end of the current word (punctuation counts as a separate word)
W	Jump forward to the start of the next word (punctuation counts as part of the word)
B	Jump backward to the start of the previous word (punctuation counts as part of the word)
E	Jump forward to the end of the current word (punctuation counts as part of the word)
0	Jump to the beginning of the line
_	Jump to the first non-whitespace character in the line
-	Jump to the beginning of the above line
$	Jump to the end of the line
^	Jump to the first non-whitespace character on the line
%	Jump to the matching bracket (), {} or []
gg or :0	Jump to the top of the file
G or :$	Jump to the bottom of the file
ngg or nG or :n	Jump to line n
fc	Jump to the next occurrence of character c
Fc	Jump to the previous occurrence of character c
;	Repeat previous f or F movement
,	Repeat previous f or F movement, backwards
}	Jump to the next paragraph or function/block
{	Jump to the previous paragraph or function/block
zz	Shift screen such that the current line is in the center
zt	Shift screen such that the current line is at the top
zb	Shift screen such that the current line is at the bottom
CTRL + Y	Shift screen up by one line (without moving cursor)
CTRL + E	Shift screen down by one line (without moving cursor)

Editing

Command	Purpose
r	Replace the current character
R	Replace until ESC is pressed
J	Join the below line with the current line and add a space in between
gJ	Join the below line with the current line without a space in between
cc or S	Replace entire line
c$ or C	Replace from current position to the end of the line
ciw	Replace current word
cw	Replace from current position to the end of the current word
diw	Delete current word
d$ or D	Delete from current position to the end of the line
dw	Delete from current position to the end of the current word
dd	Delete entire line
ndd or dnd	Delete n lines including the current line
dtc	Delete from current position till the first occurrence of character c
dnG	Delete all lines between the current line and line n, inclusive
dG	Delete the current line and all lines below it
>>	Indent line
n>> or >n>	Indent n lines including the current line
>nG	Indent all lines between the current line and line n, inclusive
>%	Indent block (from matching brackets (), {} or [])
>G	Indent the current line and all lines below it
<<	De-indent line
n<< or <n<	De-indent n lines including the current line
<nG	De-indent all lines between the current line and line n, inclusive
<%	De-indent block (from matching brackets (), {} or [])
<G	De-indent the current line and all lines below it
gg=G	Retab file
u	Undo
CTRL + R	Redo
.	Repeat previous command
:.,ns/foo/bar/g	Change each “foo” to “bar” in all lines between the current line and line n, inclusive
:%s/^/foo/	Insert “foo” to the beginning of every line
x	Delete character
ZZ	Save and exit
i	Insert before the cursor
I	Insert at the beginning of the line
a	Append after the cursor
A	Append at the end of the line
o	Open a new line below the current line
O	Open a new line above the current line

Yank (Copy) and Paste

Command	Purpose
yiw	Yank current word
y$ or Y	Yank from current position to the end of the line
yw	Yank from current position to the end of the current word
yy	Yank entire line
nyy or yny	Yank n lines including the current line
ytc	Yank from current position till the first occurrence of character c
ynG	Yank all lines between the current line and line n, inclusive
yG	Yank the current line and all lines below it
p	Paste after the cursor
P	Paste before the cursor
]p	Paste and match indentation to that of the current line

Macros

Command	Purpose
qa	Record macro a
q	Stop recording macro
@a	Run macro a
@@	Rerun last run macro

Insert Mode

These shortcuts work when Vim is in insert mode.

Command	Purpose
CTRL + H	Delete the character before the cursor
CTRL + W	Delete the current word up to the cursor
CTRL + J	Add a line break at the cursor position
CTRL + T	Indent the current line
CTRL + D	De-indent the current line