How to Save and Quit Vim (Without Losing Your Changes)

What you want to do	Vim command	What happens to the file	What happens to Vim
Save and exit	:wq + Enter	Writes the file	Closes the current window
Save and keep editing	:w + Enter	Writes the file	Stays open
Exit, saving only if modified	:x + Enter	Writes if changed	Closes the current window
Use a keyboard shortcut to save and exit	ZZ	Writes if changed	Closes the current window
Quit an unmodified buffer	:q + Enter	No write	Closes. Shows E37 if changes are unsaved
Discard edits and exit	:q! + Enter or ZQ	Unsaved edits are lost	Closes the current window
Save modified buffers and quit all windows	:wqa + Enter	Writes modified buffers	Exits if writes succeed
Quit all windows without saving	:qa! + Enter	Unsaved changes are lost	Exits the session

Commands that start with : go in from Normal mode and run when you press Enter. ZZ and ZQ are uppercase Normal-mode keystrokes, so they need no colon and no Enter.

How to save and exit Vim right now

To keep your changes, follow three steps.

1. Press Esc. This leaves Insert mode, where keystrokes become text, and puts you in Normal mode. Pressing it again does no harm if you're already there.
2. Type :wq. The colon opens Vim's command line at the bottom of the window. wq tells Vim to write the file and quit the window.
3. Press Enter. The file is written and the window closes.

In a normal single-window session, you return to the shell prompt. If other windows are open, they stay open.

These steps work when the buffer has a filename and your account can write to its destination.

After you leave Vim, open the file and look for the text you changed. Programs that read the file later, such as one that loads a configuration file, see only what's on disk, not what sat in Vim's buffer.

When to use :w, :wq, :x, and ZZ

Use :w to save and keep editing. It writes the current buffer to its file and leaves the window open.

:wq always writes, even when nothing changed. :x and ZZ write only if something did.

On Vim 9.1 (Debian), :wq changed an unchanged file's modification timestamp. :x didn't.

The Vim reference manual documents these differences. It also lists :exit as an alternative that behaves like :x. The colon matters: :exit runs inside Vim, while exit at a shell prompt belongs to the shell.

Write a second file without renaming the original

You can save the current buffer under a different filename:

:w notes-copy.txt

This writes the buffer to notes-copy.txt and keeps you in Vim. The original file isn't deleted or moved.

Quit Vim without saving or when E37 blocks :q

Say you opened a file to read it, changed a line by accident, and want the original left alone.

:q closes the window if nothing is unsaved. Otherwise Vim shows:

E37: No write since last change

The warning protects changes that are held in the buffer and haven't been written to the file.

To discard them, :q! closes the current window and skips the unsaved-change check. It throws away everything unsaved in that buffer. ZQ does the same.

E37 also appears when you switch files with a command such as :e anotherfile. Vim protects the changes in the current buffer first.

What to do when Vim cannot write the file

What Vim reports	What it indicates	What to do
E212: Can't open file for writing	Vim can't open the destination for writing	Check the path and the directory's write permission.
Read-only warning	Vim or the filesystem blocks writing to the file	Check read-only status and file permissions.
No filename / unnamed buffer	The buffer has no filename to write to	Give the buffer a filename.

The ! modifier changes how Vim handles some refusals, but it doesn't give your account permissions the filesystem denies.

If a write fails, keep the buffer open while you sort it out. If you can't write to the original location, save the buffer under a new filename somewhere you can.

Close one Vim window or quit every open file

A Vim window is a view of a buffer, and one session can hold several windows. :qa quits all windows but refuses when a modified buffer would be lost. Options such as autowriteall change that. :wqa or :xa writes modified buffers before exiting, and an unnamed or unwritable buffer stops it. :qa! also drops changes in buffers you can't see, so use it only when you mean to abandon everything unsaved.

When Git opens Vim for a commit message

Git launches Vim to collect a commit message when a command needs one.

A TestMu AI Community post (July 9, 2025) asks: “What’s the correct way to save the message and exit Vim so the commit can go through?”

Write your message, then save with :wq. Vim hands control back to Git, which processes the message. Don't use :q! as a Git cancel command. In the usual commit flow, Git aborts the commit when the message is empty.

Git uses the editor set in core.editor, so it isn't always Vim. The Git configuration documentation covers how Git selects an editor.

After the editor closes, read Git's output. A clean editor exit doesn't mean Git recorded a commit.