Nvim nvim neovim nvim-intro

Rustvim :help pages, generated from source using the tree-sitter-vimdoc parser.

Nvim is based on Vim by Bram Moolenaar. Nvim is emphatically a fork of Vim, not a clone: compatibility with Vim (especially editor and Vimscript features, except Vim9script) is maintained where possible. See vim-differences for the complete reference.

If you already use Vim, see nvim-from-vim for a quickstart.

If you have never used Vim or Nvim before, see below.

What now? nvim-quickstart

To learn how to use Vim in 30 minutes, try the tutorial:


:Tutor<Enter>

Or watch this 10-minute video: https://youtu.be/TQn2hJeHQbM .

config-example example-init

To customize Nvim, you will need a config file. Create your init.lua by copying the "example_init.lua" file:


:exe 'edit' stdpath('config') .. '/init.lua'
:read $VIMRUNTIME/example_init.lua
:write ++p
:restart

See lua-guide for practical notes on using Lua to configure Nvim.

"IDE" features in Nvim are provided by LSP.

If you are just trying out Nvim for a few minutes, and want to see the extremes of what it can do, try one of these popular "extension packs" or "distributions" (Note: Nvim is not affiliated with these projects, and does not support them):

lazyvim https://www.lazyvim.org/

nvchad https://nvchad.com/

kickstart https://github.com/nvim-lua/kickstart.nvim

Not recommended; use example-init instead.

However, we recommend (eventually) taking time to learn Nvim from its stock configuration, and incrementally setting options and adding plugins to your config as you discover a need.

Transitioning from Vim nvim-from-vim

To start the transition, create your init.vim (user config) file:


:exe 'edit' stdpath('config') .. '/init.vim'
:write ++p

Add these contents to the file:


set runtimepath^=~/.vim runtimepath+=~/.vim/after
let &packpath = &runtimepath
source ~/.vimrc

Restart Nvim, your existing Vim config will be loaded.


:restart

See provider-python and provider-clipboard for additional software you might need to use some features.

Your Vim configuration might not be entirely Nvim-compatible (see vim-differences). For example the 'ttymouse' option was removed from Nvim, because mouse support is always enabled if possible. If you use the same vimrc for Vim and Nvim you could guard 'ttymouse' in your configuration like so:

if !has('nvim')
  set ttymouse=xterm2
endif

And for Nvim-specific configuration, you can do this:

if has('nvim')
  tnoremap <Esc> <C-\><C-n>
endif

For a more granular approach use exists():

if exists(':tnoremap')
  tnoremap <Esc> <C-\><C-n>
endif

Now you should be able to explore Nvim more comfortably. Check nvim-features for more information.

portable-config

Because Nvim follows the XDG base-directories standard, configuration on Windows is stored in ~/AppData instead of ~/.config. But you can still share the same Nvim configuration on all of your machines, by creating ~/AppData/Local/nvim/init.vim containing just this line:

source ~/.config/nvim/init.vim

Main

Commands index

Quick reference

What Now?

Transitioning From Vim