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 168 · Accepted Answer · edited Sep 17 '17 at 17:33

168

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

score 80 · Answer 2 · edited Aug 31 '22 at 14:05

80

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: ~/.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 Aug 31 '22 at 14:05

Hassan Ketabi

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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 <----- This won't work as expected when at the beginning of the line ('a' will append instead of insert, which is what I'd expect). Is there are way to make it do 'a' or 'i' according to where the cursor is? – 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 15 · Answer 3 · edited Nov 21 '22 at 12:57

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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 Nov 21 '22 at 12:57

Henrik

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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
BTW, looks like `#` doesn't work for comments in `.vimrc`. Use the double quote (`"`): `" ` – Dut A. Aug 21 '22 at 05:36

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

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.

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

4 Answers4

Mac OSX Terminal + zsh?

In your .zprofile

In your .vimrc

Linked