How do I do redo (i.e. “undo undo”) in Vim?

709
votes

In Vim, I did too much undo. How do I undo this (that is, redo)?

10
vimundoredo
as I already collected 2 close votes, I think this belongs here as vim is a programmer's editor. – flybywire
I agree, this is programming-related and it's a real question. – DigitalRoss
Someone around here goes around and marks every Vim question as "belongs on SU" despite the community having long ago decided that Vim belongs on SO, it being a programming tool. – Brian Carper
@Brian: Do you have a link to the document where this consensus was reached? – too much php
meta.stackexchange.com/questions/20251/… but I recall this coming up last year sometime. Vim/Emacs are IDEs. Moreover the languages used in the config files for both are Turing-complete scripting languages, so the act of setting up Vim is itself programming to begin with. – Brian Carper

10 Answers

134
votes

Also check out :undolist, which offers multiple paths through the undo history. This is useful if you accidentally type something after undoing too much.

54
votes

Use :earlier/:later. To redo everything you just need to do

later 9999999d

(assuming that you first edited the file at most 9999999 days ago), or, if you remember the difference between current undo state and needed one, use Nh, Nm or Ns for hours, minutes and seconds respectively. + :later N<CR> <=> Ng+ and :later Nf for file writes.

45
votes

Vim documentation

<Undo>      or                  *undo* *<Undo>* *u*
u           Undo [count] changes.  {Vi: only one level}

                            *:u* *:un* *:undo*
:u[ndo]         Undo one change.  {Vi: only one level}

                            *CTRL-R*
CTRL-R          Redo [count] changes which were undone.  {Vi: redraw screen}

                            *:red* *:redo* *redo*
:red[o]         Redo one change which was undone.  {Vi: no redo}

                            *U*
U           Undo all latest changes on one line.  {Vi: while not
            moved off of it}
30
votes

In command mode, use the U key to undo and Ctrl + r to redo. Have a look at http://www.vim.org/htmldoc/undo.html.

15
votes

First press the Esc key to exit from edit mode.

Then,

For undo, use u key as many times you want to undo.

For redo, use Ctrl +r key

11
votes

Refer to the "undo" and "redo" part of Vim document.

:red[o] (Redo one change which was undone) and {count} Ctrl+r (Redo {count} changes which were undone) are both ok.

Also, the :earlier {count} (go to older text state {count} times) could always be a substitute for undo and redo.

5
votes

CTRL+r

The "r" is lower-case.

4
votes

Using VsVim for Visual Studio?

I came across this when experimenting with VsVim, which provides bindings for Vim commands in Visual Studio.

I know about Ctrlr in Vim itself, but this particular binding does not work in VsVim (at least not in my setup?).

What does work however, is the command :red. This is a little bit more of a hassle than the above, but it is still fine when you really need it.

2
votes

Practically speaking, the :undolist is hard to use and Vim’s :earlier and :later time tracking of changes is only usable for course-grain fixes.

Given that, I resort to a plug-in that combines these features to provide a visual tree of browsable undos, called “Gundo.”

Obviously, this is something to use only when you need a fine-grained fix, or you are uncertain of the exact state of the document you wish to return to. See: Gundo. Graph your Vim undo tree in style