In vim how to map "save" to ctrl-s

Question

In vim, how can I map "save" (:w) to ctrl-s.

I am trying "map" the command, but xterm freezes when I press ctrl-s.

If I give ctrl-v,ctrl-s still I see only a ^, not ^S.

what's wrong with Vim's usual :w ? I'm *guessing* ctrl-s freezes your xterm because it freezes all output in terminals. ('stty -ixon' might help) — Yoni H, Aug 10 '10 at 06:14
Pressing (Escape shift colon w Enter) takes about 3 times longer than pressing Ctrl-s. Although I have found pressing ctrl-s causes carpal tunnel more than Esc shift colon w enter, it spreads out the strain to have two options to save. — Eric Leschinski, Jul 02 '12 at 17:24
after years of what the hell did i do to freeze my vi session... ctrl-q — ron, Jan 14 '21 at 19:40

score 161 · Accepted Answer · edited Sep 17 '17 at 17:33

161

Ctrl+S is a common command to terminals to stop updating, it was a way to slow the output so you could read it on terminals that didn't have a scrollback buffer. First find out if you can configure your xterm to pass Ctrl+S through to the application. Then these map commands will work:

noremap <silent> <C-S>          :update<CR>
vnoremap <silent> <C-S>         <C-C>:update<CR>
inoremap <silent> <C-S>         <C-O>:update<CR>

BTW: if Ctrl+S freezes your terminal, type Ctrl+Q to get it going again.

edited Sep 17 '17 at 17:33

Fabrizio

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answered Aug 10 '10 at 11:46

Ned Batchelder

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works with OSX, iTerm2, ZSH, oh-my-zsh when you include "stty -ixon" in the .zshrc file – Richard Aug 12 '13 at 18:16
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"stty -ixon" in your .bashrc is also required for Terminal.app with bash. – Jonathan Potter May 05 '14 at 17:23
@ned-batchelder Is it ok if you map to Ctrl-W, instead? Will there be a problem with vim or terminal default commands? – Thi G. Jun 03 '16 at 22:09
@ThiG. `` is usually used for window splitting and window commands – Juve Jun 26 '16 at 17:40
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the BTW is was the reason the search engines landed me here, thanks. – Timothy L.J. Stewart Apr 08 '17 at 20:28

Eric Leschinski · Answer 2 · 2015-01-22T00:59:35.790

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In linux with VI, you want to press Ctrl-S and have it save your document. This worked for me, put the following three lines in your .vimrc file. This file should be located in your home directory: /home/el/.vimrc If this file doesn't exist you can create it.

:nmap <c-s> :w<CR>
:imap <c-s> <Esc>:w<CR>a

The first line says: pressing Ctrl-S within a document will perform a :w <enter> keyboard combination.

The second line says: pressing Ctrl-S within a document while in 'insert' mode will escape to normal mode, perform a :w <enter, then press a to get back into insert mode. Your cursor may move during this event.

You may notice that pressing Ctrl-S performs an 'XOFF' which stops commands from being received (If you are using ssh).

To fix that, place these two commands in your ~/.bash_profile

bind -r '\C-s'
stty -ixon

What that does is turn off the binding of Ctrl-S and gets rid of any XOFF onscreen messages when pressing Ctrl-S. Note, after you make changes to your .bash_profile you have to re-run it with the command 'source .bash_profile' or logout/login.

More Info: http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Map_Ctrl-S_to_save_current_or_new_files

edited Jan 22 '15 at 00:59

answered Jul 02 '12 at 17:14

Eric Leschinski

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For gnome terminal doing adding 'stty -ixon' to my .bashrc was enough. – DavidGamba Jul 29 '13 at 15:17
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:imap :wa – alexandernst Apr 11 '14 at 09:07
Could you please explain why you use 2 `imap` commands? It seems like you only need `imap :wa`. Thanks. – gwintrob Jan 21 '15 at 22:37
I thought the 2nd imap command line had significance, but on further inspection it does nothing. Excellent catch, I removed the lame line. – Eric Leschinski Jan 22 '15 at 00:59
I recommend the nonrecursive mappings (noremap vs nmap) to avoid unexpected pain down the road. See http://learnvimscriptthehardway.stevelosh.com/chapters/05.html – studgeek Jan 24 '17 at 19:51
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Is there a reason why you're using a instead of i? – DemiImp Mar 09 '19 at 01:15

score 13 · Answer 3 · edited Jun 28 '20 at 18:41

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vim

# ~/.vimrc
nnoremap <c-s> :w<CR> # normal mode: save
inoremap <c-s> <Esc>:w<CR>l # insert mode: escape to normal and save
vnoremap <c-s> <Esc>:w<CR> # visual mode: escape to normal and save

zsh (if you use)

# ~/.zshrc
# enable control-s and control-q
stty start undef
stty stop undef
setopt noflowcontrol

bash (if you use)

# ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bashrc
# enable control-s and control-q
stty -ixon

edited Jun 28 '20 at 18:41

Jean-François Fabre

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answered Aug 11 '15 at 02:56

Chun Yang

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Shouldn't it be `vnoremap :w # visual mode: escape to normal and save` ? – BlackBeltScripting Oct 23 '15 at 22:44

score 11 · Answer 4 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

11

Mac OSX Terminal + zsh?

In your .zprofile

alias vim="stty stop '' -ixoff; vim"

Why?, What's happening? See Here, but basically for most terminals ctrl+s is already used for something, so this alias vim so that before we run vim we turn off that mapping.

In your .vimrc

nmap <c-s> :w<cr>
imap <c-s> <esc>:w<cr>a

Why? What's happening? This one should be pretty obvious, we're just mapping ctrl+s to different keystrokes depending on if we are in normal mode or insert mode.

edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

Community

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answered Feb 25 '14 at 03:20

user160917

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you sir saved my day – xechelonx May 21 '17 at 18:43

In vim how to map "save" to ctrl-s

4 Answers4

Mac OSX Terminal + zsh?

In your .zprofile

In your .vimrc

Linked