I am using Windows and before committing, Git wants me to enter a text message and a new text window appears.
How can I exit from this?
I am trying to learn Git. So, a little help will be highly appreciated.
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1possible duplicate of [Git commit asking for comment](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5668191/git-commit-asking-for-comment) – Cascabel Feb 07 '12 at 05:27
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5 years on, and with this being a [famous question](https://stackoverflow.com/help/badges/28/famous-question?userid=1115545), would you like to accept an answer? – aaron Dec 19 '17 at 03:49
7 Answers
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Since you are learning Git, know that this has little to do with git but with the text editor configured for use. In vim, you can press i to start entering text and save by pressing esc and :wq and enter, this will commit with the message you typed. In your current state, to just come out without committing, you can do :q instead of the :wq as mentioned above.
Alternatively, you can just do git commit -m '<message>' instead of having git open the editor to type the message.
Note that you can also change the editor and use something you are comfortable with ( like notepad) - How can I set up an editor to work with Git on Windows?
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I recommend setting the editor to your favorite editor. Then use the command line version (git commit -m '...') when it fits, or let it launch your editor (TextMate, Notepad, whatever) when it doesn't – Gal Aug 26 '15 at 00:18
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There is a default text editor that will be used when Git needs you to type in a message. By default, Git uses your system’s default editor, which is generally Vi or Vim. In your case, it is Vim that Git has chosen. See How do I make Git use the editor of my choice for commits? for details of how to choose another editor. Meanwhile...
You'll want to enter a message before you leave Vim:
...will start a new line for you to type in.
To exit (g)Vim type:
It's worth getting to know Vim, as you can use it for editing text on almost any platform. I recommend the Vim Tutor, I used it many years ago and have never looked back (barely a day goes by when I don't use Vim).
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1It's hard to see whether the 'O' is upper or lower case. A lower case 'o' causes the message to be written on the second row. – johnny Feb 07 '12 at 09:33
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I guess it depends on your font. Hopefully the document to which it's hyperlinked will help disambiguate. – johnsyweb Feb 07 '12 at 11:53
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It's worth getting to know vim so you can quit it from a wide variety of applications that default to it. – djechlin Sep 16 '17 at 21:35
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In Inteliji Idea if you set Git as Terminal Escape just changes focus to code editor from Terminal, so the commits are still in edition mode, useless – user924 Aug 02 '23 at 11:00
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it worked all the time, by now it's always being in INSERT mode, I press ESC but nothing changes! it's still edits commits – user924 Jan 27 '22 at 16:22
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it doesn't work if you added it as terminal for IntelliJ Idea. sometimes `CTRL + ESC` works but sometimes it closes fully the vim and you have to abort rebase because it failed to continue – user924 Aug 02 '23 at 10:57
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On Windows 10 this worked for me for VIM and VI using git bash
"Esc" + ":wq!"
or
"Esc" + ":q!"
atazmin
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On windows I used the following command
:wq
and it aborts the previous commit because of the empty commit message
Mayank Pandeyz
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Riya Abraham
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you can just start typing it until you exit somehow editing mode, it's very intuitive with IntelliJ Idea when using git as terminal – user924 Aug 02 '23 at 10:58
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First type
i
to enter the commit message then press ESC then type
:wq
to save the commit message and to quit. Or type
:q!
to quit without saving the message.
Prashant Kumar Gupta
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On windows, simply pressing 'q' on the keyboard quits this screen. I got it when I was reading help using '!help' or simply 'help' and 'enter', from the DOS prompt.
Happy Coding :-)
Abhinav Saxena
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