What is the command for "Select All" in Vim and VsVim?

Question

How do I select all the content of a file in Vim and VsVim? Like in other editors Ctrl-A does the job for select all.

SibiCoder's answer is good, but it would be useful to know what you intend to do with the content you copied. — Law29, Jul 31 '16 at 08:22
First, you "select" some text in a "buffer", not in a "file". Two, "selecting" is often useless in Vim so you must be clear about what you want to do with that "selection". For you and for us. — romainl, Jul 31 '16 at 09:33
@romainly I think the OP means selecting the whole file in visual mode, considering that ctrl+a in other editors visually highlights the entire file. — EvergreenTree, Jul 31 '16 at 13:14
@statox Why did you edit [tag:vsvim] out? It's not a huge deal to me, but I think the tag is perfectly appropriate, and I didn't want to get in an edit war. (I would have pinged you in :chat!, but you haven't been in that room recently, so it wouldn't let me) — DJMcMayhem, Aug 01 '16 at 23:28
@DJMcMayhem: It was an error: I first thought that vsvim was like vimperator and this kind of plugins for other softwares and thus was off topic so I removed it, then I had a doubt so I checked meta and saw that it was on topic so I approved your tag edit but forgot to edit the question again. I'm changing that right now, sorry for that. — statox, Aug 02 '16 at 07:35

score 135 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 31 '16 at 06:29

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ggVG selects all content. gg moves to first line. V starts visual mode. G jumps to last line thereby selecting from first to last line

answered Jul 31 '16 at 06:29

SibiCoder

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I keep getting no a vim command for ggVG and gg, even G – Samuel Owino Oct 07 '20 at 16:09
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Both mine and yours are correct. Visual mode works both ways – SibiCoder Mar 21 '21 at 15:00
It may be unnecessary to capitalize the 'V' here, since the "whole line" part seems moot because the two boundaries are at the very beginning and the very end of the file. – Carsten Führmann Apr 16 '23 at 16:21

score 47 · Answer 2 · edited May 03 '22 at 13:53

Along with SibiCoder's answer, if you have a clear idea of what you want to do you can use the following:

:%X

Where X is a command, for example:

:%d             -> delete every line
:%y             -> yank every line
:%normal! >>    -> indent every line

You have also the global command :g which, with the search pattern ^, can do the same thing:

:g/^/d             -> delete every line
:g/^/y             -> yank every line
:g/^/normal! >>    -> indent every line

If what you want is selecting the text, then ggVG is fine, but keep in mind these method, in the case you already know what is the next step. Note that it won't leave the cursor in visual mode.

See: :h :% and :h :g for reference.

Note that, even though the C-A mapping is used in vim (see :h CTRL-A), you can map it to do what other editors do:

nnoremap <C-A> ggVG

Just be aware that mapping C-A could clash with other plugins' mappings or with screen's default prefix.

Note that :> is an Ex command, so :%> works – D. Ben Knoble May 03 '22 at 13:57 — D. Ben Knoble, May 03 '22 at 13:57

score 5 · Answer 3 · edited Jan 16 '21 at 02:59

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As @SibiCoder mentioned ggVG does the trick, but I like something closer to Ctrl+A.

So I added this line to my .vimrc

nnoremap <leader>a ggVG

Now pressing <leader>a will select everything, in my case it's \a.

edited Jan 16 '21 at 02:59

D. Ben Knoble

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answered Jan 16 '21 at 02:53

Alex Kosh

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Welcome to [vi.se]! Theoretically you could map control a (<C-a>), but it happens to have a useful default functionality – D. Ben Knoble Jan 16 '21 at 02:59
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Yeah, that's why I prefer <leader>a – Alex Kosh Jan 16 '21 at 03:01
to know what <leader> is : https://stackoverflow.com/a/1764336/10204932 – Deepam Gupta May 19 '21 at 06:46

score 5 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 31 '16 at 17:34

The other answers are good. Here's another alternative.

Since you mention that you are using VsVim, you can change which keys are handled by visual Studio, and which keys are handled by vsvim. Go to

Tools -> Options -> VsVim -> Keyboard

From there you can set Ctrl-a to be handled by Visual Studio, rather than VsVim.

Although I do not recommend this since you will not be able to use vim's <C-a>, which I find to be an essential feature. Though it's up to you.

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Nov 20 '20 at 03:31

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If you'd like a faster/more intuitive way to do this and don't mind adding a plugin, this looks handy: https://github.com/kana/vim-textobj-entire

answered Nov 20 '20 at 03:31

workflow

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Wenfang Du · Answer 6 · 2024-02-18T09:40:49.730

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I used to use map <leader>a ggVG to select all, but later I found that Cmd+V/Ctrl+V pasting has an extra new line. So nowadays, I use:

map <leader>a G$vgg0

Which works without side effects.

edited Feb 18 '24 at 09:40

answered Mar 12 '23 at 11:24

Wenfang Du

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+1 for pointing out the carriage return issue with the Visual Line mode. Also, your your suggested mapping could be just <Leader>a ggv$G$ – ranemirusG Feb 11 '24 at 19:15
@ranemirusG Thanks for the suggestion, edited. – Wenfang Du Feb 18 '24 at 09:42

score 0 · Answer 7 · edited Apr 19 '22 at 11:10

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:1 puts your cursor at the beginning of the 1st line. Then VG selects everything.

Then you do whatever you want with the selection: yank, delect, copy, ...

edited Apr 19 '22 at 11:10

statox

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answered Apr 18 '22 at 21:02

Jim Miller

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score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Jan 24 '23 at 13:08

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Go to Edit-->SelectAll from toolbar

answered Jan 24 '23 at 13:08

Taran Jain

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Works in GUI mode. You will notice that behind "SelectAll" it says ggVG. Many experienced vi users will find it cumbersome to take their hands of their keyboards ;) – Friedrich Jan 24 '23 at 16:31

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Aug 03 '16 at 06:13

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you can use a big number like 99999yy to select all the content of your file

answered Aug 03 '16 at 06:13

Adel Kihal

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Files larger than 100000 lines are possible, though rare. Also, using yy will yank them, not select them. – DJMcMayhem Aug 03 '16 at 06:43
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yah sure you are right but when selecting something it's for the most cases to cut,copy or delete them :) – Adel Kihal Aug 04 '16 at 08:51
That's what i needed. Select all and yank. – Ivan Jan 31 '20 at 15:57
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Just :%y is enough. Or :%y + to yank everything in the + register. – Luc Hermitte Nov 20 '20 at 14:09

What is the command for "Select All" in Vim and VsVim?

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