Registers and Clipboard

You’ve already used copy and paste (y and p) without knowing where the copied text actually goes. This chapter explains that, and how to get things in and out of your system clipboard so Vim can talk to the rest of your computer.

Where yanked text lives

Every time you yank or delete text, it goes into a register, Vim’s version of a clipboard slot. By default, y and d both use the unnamed register, written as ". That’s why p after a dd pastes the line you just deleted: delete and yank share the same default storage.

Named registers

You’re not limited to one slot. Prefix a yank or delete with " followed by a letter to store it in a named register instead of overwriting the default one. "ayy yanks the current line into register a. "ap pastes from register a. This matters once you’re juggling more than one thing at a time, copy one line into "a, copy another into "b, and paste either one whenever you need it without them overwriting each other.

The system clipboard

Registers " and the named ones (a through z) are internal to Vim. They don’t talk to your operating system’s clipboard by default, so Ctrl-c in your browser and y in Vim land in different places. To bridge them, Vim has two special registers:

"+ is the system clipboard (the one Cmd-c / Ctrl-c use elsewhere)
"* is the “selection” clipboard on some Linux setups (less relevant on macOS and Windows)

To yank a line into your system clipboard: "+yy. To paste from your system clipboard into Vim: "+p. This is the pair to memorize if you want to move text between Vim and other applications.

Neovim note: Neovim has the same register system, and on most modern installs "+ works out of the box. In classic Vim, clipboard support depends on how it was compiled, run vim --version and look for +clipboard (with a plus sign, not a minus) to confirm yours has it.

Try it

Open a scratch file with several lines of distinct text and practice:

Delete a line with dd, then paste it back with p. Notice the deleted text was sitting in the default register the whole time.
Yank one line into register a with "ayy, then yank a different line into register b with "byy. Paste each one back with "ap and "bp, in either order, and confirm they didn’t overwrite each other.
Yank a line into your system clipboard with "+yy, then paste it into another application (a browser address bar, a notes app, anything) with your normal paste shortcut.
Copy some text from another application, then paste it into Vim with "+p.