Types of Marks

Vim provides several types of marks, with different behaviors and uses. Our previous examples set the x mark, so lets start by explaining those examples in a bit more details.

Lower-case Marks

Note that the x character used in our previous examples is a lower-case character. Although we chose x, those examples could have used any lower-case letter in the range from [a-z].

The main characteristics of lower-case marks are:

  1. Lower-case marks are local to a buffer, meaning that the x mark from our examples can be independently set in multiple buffers, without conflict. For this reason, lower-case marks are sometimes called "local marks".

  2. They are remembered for as long as the buffer is in memory (or more specifically, as long as it remains in the buffer list). If you set a mark then close the buffer, next time you open the file the marks will be lost.

  3. Lower-case marks are automatically deleted if the line containing the mark is deleted.

Upper-case Marks

Upper-case marks refer to marks that are defined using upper-case letters, in the [A-Z] range. Upper-case marks are used just like the lower-case marks, though they have a few important differences:

  1. Unlike lower-case marks which are references within a single buffer, upper-case marks contain references to the files that they are defined in, allowing jumps between files. For this reason, the are sometimes called "file marks".

  2. Upper-case marks persist between sessions, and are not lost when a buffer is closed.

  3. Upper-case marks are globally-available, meaning that the A mark means the same thing in all files. In other words, only 26 upper-case marks can be defined at a time. Redefining an upper-case mark in one file redefines it in all files. For this reason, upper-case marks are sometimes called "global marks".

Read-only Marks

The lower-case and upper-case marks allow users to mark positions in buffers and files then quickly return to them. Vim additionally provides a variety of "read-only" marks, which are set automatically by Vim, but allow users to quickly jump to them. Some of the common read-only marks are:

Mark Action
`` Move the cursor to the position before the most recent jump
`. Move the cursor to the position of the most recent edit
`^ Move the cursor to the position when the editor entered INSERT mode
`[ Move the cursor to the start of the most-recently yanked or changed text
`] Move the cursor to the end of the most-recently yanked or changed text
`< Move the cursor to the start of the most-recent visual selection
`> Move the cursor to the end of the most-recent visual selection
`" Move the cursor to the position when this buffer was most-recently exited
`0 Move the cursor to the location when Vim was most-recently exited
`( Move the cursor to the start of the current sentence
`) Move the cursor to the end of the current sentence
`{ Move the cursor to the start of the current paragraph
`} Move the cursor to the end of the current paragraph

As with all marks, use either `` or'` followed by the read-only mark to jump to the desired location.

There are also a few commands that help navigate with marks.

Command Action
]` Move the cursor to the next lower-case mark
[` Move the cursor to the previous lower-case mark
]' Move the cursor to the start of the next line that contains a lower-case mark
[' Move the cursor to the start of the previous line that contains a lower-case mark