Where is my .vimrc file?

503

votes

I have been using Vim, and I would really like to save my settings. The problem I am having is that I cannot find my .vimrc file, and it is not in the standard /home/user/.vimrc location. How might I find this file?

vim

If it isn't there, create it. – user554546

My Ubuntu machine had it in a file named /usr/share/vim/vimrc. – ckjbgames

Possible duplicate of How to locate the vimrc file used by vim editor? – yashgarg1232

594

votes

You need to create it. In most installations I've used it hasn't been created by default.

You usually create it as ~/.vimrc.

380

votes

These methods work, if you already have a .vimrc file:

:scriptnames list all the .vim files that Vim loaded for you, including your .vimrc file.

:e $MYVIMRC open & edit the current .vimrc that you are using, then use Ctrl + G to view the path in status bar.

110

votes

Short answer:

To create your vimrc, start up Vim and do one of the following:

:e $HOME/.vimrc  " on Unix, Mac or OS/2

:e $HOME/_vimrc  " on Windows

:e s:.vimrc      " on Amiga

Insert the settings you want, and save the file.

Note that exisitence of this file will disable the compatible option. See below for details.

Long answer:

There are two kinds of vimrc:

the user vimrc in $HOME
the system vimrc in $VIM (on Amiga systems, s:.vimrc is considered a user vimrc)

The user vimrc file often does not exist until created by the user. If you cannot find $HOME/.vimrc (or $HOME/_vimrc on Windows) then you can, and probably should, just create it.

The system vimrc should normally be left unmodified and is located in the $VIM^* directory. The system vimrc is not a good place you keep your personal settings. If you modify this file your changes may be overwritten if you ever upgrade Vim. Also, changes here will affect other users on a multi-user system. In most cases, settings in the user vimrc will override settings in the system vimrc.

From :help vimrc:

A file that contains initialization commands is called a "vimrc" file. Each line in a vimrc file is executed as an Ex command line. It is sometimes also referred to as "exrc" file. They are the same type of file, but "exrc" is what Vi always used, "vimrc" is a Vim specific name. Also see |vimrc-intro|.

Places for your personal initializations:
    Unix            $HOME/.vimrc or $HOME/.vim/vimrc
    OS/2            $HOME/.vimrc, $HOME/vimfiles/vimrc
                    or $VIM/.vimrc (or _vimrc)
    MS-Windows      $HOME/_vimrc, $HOME/vimfiles/vimrc
                    or $VIM/_vimrc
    Amiga           s:.vimrc, home:.vimrc, home:vimfiles:vimrc
                    or $VIM/.vimrc
The files are searched in the order specified above and only the first one that is found is read.

(MacOS counts as Unix for the above.)

Note that the mere existence of a user vimrc will change Vim's behavior by turning off the compatible option. From :help compatible-default:

When Vim starts, the 'compatible' option is on. This will be used when Vim starts its initializations. But as soon as a user vimrc file is found, or a vimrc file in the current directory, or the "VIMINIT" environment variable is set, it will be set to 'nocompatible'. This has the side effect of setting or resetting other options (see 'compatible'). But only the options that have not been set or reset will be changed.

^{* $VIM may not be set in your shell, but is always set inside Vim. If you want to see what it's set to, start up Vim and use the command :echo $VIM}

30

votes

As additional information, mostly in macOS, the .vimrc file is located at directory:

/usr/share/vim/.vimrc

25

votes

:echo($MYVIMRC)

will give you the location of your .vimrc file.

:e $MYVIMRC

will open it.

18

votes

For whatever reason, these answers didn't quite work for me. This is what worked for me instead:

In Vim, the :version command gives you the paths of system and user vimrc and gvimrc files (among other things), and the output looks something like this:

 system vimrc file: "$VIM/vimrc"
   user vimrc file: "$HOME/.vimrc"
    user exrc file: "$HOME/.exrc"
system gvimrc file: "$VIM/gvimrc"
  user gvimrc file: "$HOME/.gvimrc"

The one you want is user vimrc file: "$HOME/.vimrc"

So to edit the file: vim $HOME/.vimrc

Source: Open vimrc file

13

votes

Open Vim, and in normal mode type:

:echo $VIM

13

votes

on unix vim --version tells you the various locations of the vim config files :

   system vimrc file: "$VIM/vimrc"
     user vimrc file: "$HOME/.vimrc"
 2nd user vimrc file: "~/.vim/vimrc"
      user exrc file: "$HOME/.exrc"
       defaults file: "$VIMRUNTIME/defaults.vim"
  fall-back for $VIM: "/usr/share/vim"

6

votes

I'd like to share how I set showing the line number as the default on Mac.

In a terminal, type cd. This will help you go to the home folder.
In the terminal, type vi .vimrc. This will create an empty vimrc system file which you want to use.
In the file, type set number, and then hit Esc on the keyboard and type in :wq. This will set the line number shown in the default setting file vimrc and save it.
vi something to see if this works. If not, try to restart the terminal completely.

If in a terminal, type in cd /usr/share/vim/, go to that folder, and type in ls. You can directly see a file named vimrc. But it's a system file that says read only. I feel it's not a good idea to try modify it. So following the above steps to create a vimrc by yourself is better. It worked for me.

5

votes

Here are a few more tips:

In Arch Linux the global one is at /etc/vimrc. There are some comments in there with helpful details.
Since the filename starts with a ., it's hidden unless you use ls -a to show ALL files.
Typing :version while in Vim will show you a bunch of interesting information including the file location.
If you're not sure what ~/.vimrc means look at this question.

3

votes

Useful Information can be obtained using the `find` command

find / -iname "*vimrc*" -type f 2>/dev/null

There are many answers already, but it can sometimes be useful to simply run a "find" for anything containing the name "vimrc".

The reason is that this will show you what files you actualy have available on the system currently, rather than what you might put on your system. (The information for which you would obtain from :version as explained in other answers.)

Example result on my system

On my system this produces

/usr/share/vim/vim82/vimrc_example.vim
/usr/share/vim/vim82/gvimrc_example.vim
/etc/vim/gvimrc
/etc/vim/vimrc
/etc/vim/vimrc.tiny

Which is quite useful because it tells us that there are 2 example files installed in the share directorys for both gvim and vim, and that there are also some system-wide config files below /etc/.

On my system, I also have a file at ~/.vimrc but this does not appear in this list because it is a link to another file, stored under ~/Linux-Config. But you won't have this directory, it's specific to machines I use on my own network.

Detailed Explanation of `find` syntax used

Explanation:

find starting at the root directory / (find works recursively)
anything containing the case insensitive regex *vimrc* which means any name with vimrc (case insensitive) in it somewhere, can be preceeded or followed by anything or nothing (*)
type = files (not directory/symlink etc)
throw all errors to /dev/null otherwise the output is spammed with unreadable errors from /proc

2

votes

I tried everything in the previous answer and couldn't find a .vimrc file, so I had to make one.

I copied the example file, cp vimrc_example.vim ~/.vimrc.

I had to create the file, copying from /usr/share/vim/vim74/vimrc_example.vim to ~/.vimrc. Those were the instructions in the vimrc_example file.

My solution is for Unix for other operating systems. According to the Vim documentation, your destination path should be as follows:

    For Unix and OS/2   : ~/.vimrc
    For Amiga           : s:.vimrc
    For MS-DOS and Win32: $VIM\_vimrc
    For OpenVMS         : sys$login:.vimrc

2

votes

actually you have one vimrc in

/etc/vimrc

when you edit something in there the changes will effect all users
if you don't want that you can create a local vimrc in

~/.vimrc

the changes here will only effect the one user

1

votes

From cmd (Windows):

C\Users\You> `vim foo.txt`

Now in Vim, enter command mode by typing: ":" (i.e. Shift + ;)

:tabedit $HOME/.vimrc

1

votes

The vimrc file in Ubuntu (12.04 (Precise Pangolin)): I tried :scriptnames in Vim, and it shows both /usr/share/vim/vimrc and ~/.vimrc.

But I had manually created ~/.vimrc.

1

votes

In SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) and openSUSE the global one is located at /etc/vimrc.

To edit it, simply do vi /etc/vimrc.

0

votes

Where is the .vimrc file? It depends on the OS. As you can see, you were looking for /home/$user/.vimrc, which probably means you are using BSD / Linux. Here are the locations for each OS...

BSD / Linux : /home/$user/.vimrc
SunOS / Solaris : /export/home/$user/.vimrc
MacOS : /Users/$user/.vimrc
Android : /data/media/$userid/.vimrc
Unix : $root/home/$user/.vimrc
AT&T Unix : $root/usr/$user/.vimrc
Unix-Derived :
- /var/users/$user/.vimrc
- /u01/$user/.vimrc
- /usr/$user/.vimrc
- /user/$user/.vimrc
- /users/$user/.vimrc (Source: Wikipedia: Default home directory per operating system.)

If it doesn't exist, create it with ~/.vimrc.

In addition, the root user has their own special .vimrc file, which can be found in /root/.vimrc on BSD / Linux (and in equivalent locations for the other OS's).

The location is set in the $HOME variable, which is always set in Linux environments. (Source: StackExchange->Unix & Linux.)

Where is my .vimrc file?

17 Answers

Short answer:

Long answer:

Useful Information can be obtained using the find command

Example result on my system

Detailed Explanation of find syntax used

Useful Information can be obtained using the `find` command

Detailed Explanation of `find` syntax used