Why does Vim save files with a extension

Question

I ve found that while using Vim on Windows Vim saves the file  a  ext swp file that s deleted on closing the Vim window and a  ext  file    I assume the  ext swp file is a session backup in case Vim crashes  What s the purpose of the  ext  file however  Is this a permanent backup file  It s annoying as I d like to copy all the files I m working on to my host  without these duplicates  How can I turn this off or  if it s there for a good reason  hide the files

User · Answer

The only option that worked for me was to put this line in my ~/.vimrc file

set noundofile

The other options referring to backup files did not prevent the creation of the temp files ending in ~ (tilde)

User · Answer

And you can also set a different backup extension and where to save those backup  I prefer    vimbackups on linux   I used to use  versioned  backups  via   au BufWritePre   let  amp bex    -    strftime   Y m d- H M S       vimbackup    This sets a dynamic backup extension  ORIGINALFILENAME-YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS vimbackup

User · Answer

I think the better solution is to place these lines in your vimrc file  set backupdir   vimtmp     set directory   vimtmp       The first line is for backup files  the second line for swap files  The double slash at the end ensures that there is no conflict in case of two files having the same name  see comments  at the time of this edit this option is only honored for swap files  not yet for backup files   The    allow vim to use the current directory if the former doesn t exist   You have to create a directory in your home directory called vimtmp for this to work  Also  check that backups are enabled in your config  add set backup if not    That way you get the benefit of both worlds  you don t have to see the files  but if something does get futzed you can go get your backup file from vimtmp  Don t forget to clean the directory out every now and then

User · Answer

The   ext  file is a backup file  containing the file as it was before you edited it  The   ext swp file is the swap file  which serves as a lock file and contains the undo redo history as well as any other internal info Vim needs  In case of a crash you can re-open your file and Vim will restore its previous state from the swap file  which I find helpful  so I don t switch it off   To switch off automatic creation of backup files  use  in your vimrc   set nobackup set nowritebackup  Where nowritebackup changes the default  quot save quot  behavior of Vim  which is   write buffer to new file delete the original file rename the new file  and makes Vim write the buffer to the original file  resulting in the risk of destroying it in case of an I O error   But you prevent  quot jumping files quot  on the Windows desktop with it  which is the primary reason for me to have nowritebackup in place

User · Answer

I had to add set noundofile to   gvimrc    The     directory can be identified by changing the directory with the cd   command

User · Answer

You re correct that the  swp file is used by vim for locking and as a recovery file   Try putting set nobackup in your vimrc if you don t want these files  See the Vim docs for various backup related options if you want the whole scoop  or want to have  bak files instead

User · Answer

To turn off those files  just add these lines to  vimrc  vim configuration file on unix based OS    set nobackup        no backup files set nowritebackup   only in case you don t want a backup file while editing set noswapfile      no swap files

User · Answer

Put this line into your vimrc   set nobk nowb noswf noudf   nobackup nowritebackup noswapfile noundofile    In windows that would be the   C  Program Files  x86  vim  vimrc   file for system-wide vim configuration for all users   Setting the last one noundofile is important in Windows to prevent the creation of    tilda files after editing     I wish Vim had that line included by default  Nobody likes ugly directories   Let the user choose if and how she wants to enable advanced backup undo file features first   This is the most annoying part of Vim   The next step might be setting up   set noeb vb t vb    errorbells visualbell  to disable beeping in vim as well  -

User · Answer

set nobackup    will turn off backups  You can also set a backupdir if you still want those backup files but in a central folder  This way your working dir is not littered with   files   You find more information on backups under  he backup

[vim] Why does Vim save files with a ~ extension?

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