How to save all files in tabs on Vim?

Question

If I have multiple files in tabs on VIM and I edit few of them. How to save them with one command?

Solution 1

The command wa (short for wall) will write all changed buffers. You can also use :tabdo w, which is definitely exactly what you want, and generalizes nicely.

Solution 2

Just do

:wa

(followed by return) which is a shorthand for

:wall

Also to "save everything and exit" you can do

:wqa or :xa

(="write-quit-all")

Solution 3

It's possible to suffix a[ll] for a number of Vim command-line commands (i.e. type : when in normal mode), include:

• :wa - save all tabs / unsaved buffers

• :xa/:wqa - save all tabs / unsaved buffers and exit Vim

• :qa - exit vim (will warn if unsaved buffers exist)

Solution 4

To save all the files just use an a after the write command to write all the files.

:wa

Solution 5

And you can use :tabdo! w too, I'm just adding this, because it's useful for other things too (e.g. :tabdo! g/somepattern/ s/something/anything/... I use it all the time for refactoring purposes...)

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Comments

[Zsolt Botykai]

I'd recommend a read on help :g, but in short, it only applies the next command (in my case the s/something/anything/ to the lines, that matches somepattern). Yeah I know, that usually I can do that without the :g, but sometimes not (I used to match multiline regexes via \\_.), and the best part is :g's little "sister" :v.

[Andrew Marshall]

:tabdo w is not equivalent to :wa. If a tab has multiple windows open, :tabdo w will only save the currently focused window in each tab, whereas :wa will save all of them. :wa will also save hidden buffers.

[Andrew Marshall]

See my comment on the other post above for why :tabdo w may not work as expected.

[Zsolt Botykai]

@AndrewMarshall Thanks TIL about those behavior of :tabdo w.