The `yank-ring` picker

picker-yank-ring: pick anything you recently yanked or deleted and insert it where you are — the buffer, the `:` or `/` line, or another picker's query.

On this page

Everything you have recently yanked or deleted, newest first, followed by your registers. <CR> inserts the pick where you were when you opened the picker — which is the point of it: the same key gives you something you copied, wherever you happen to be typing.

Open it with:

FromKeyThe pick goes
Insert mode<C-r><C-r>into the buffer, at the cursor
inside any picker<C-r>onto the end of that picker's query (the picker comes back)
the : line or the / line<C-r><C-r>into that line, at the cursor
anywhere:picker yank-ringwherever something is waiting for it — nowhere, from Normal mode (it says so)

<C-r> followed by a register name (<C-r>a) is vim's register insert and skips the picker.


Keys in this picker

KeyHere
(type)Filter by contents
<CR>Insert the text where you were, and close
<C-n> / <C-p>, <Down> / <Up>, <Tab> / <S-Tab>Move the selection
<BS> / <C-w>Delete a character / the previous word of the query
<Esc> / <C-c>Close; nothing is inserted. A picker you opened this from comes back as you left it
<C-h>This page

<C-s> / <C-v> / <C-t> do nothing — the pick is text to insert, not something to open. <C-q> has nothing to send. <C-l> and <C-d> do nothing, and <C-r> here does not nest a second one.


What is listed

  1. The ring, newest first: every yank and delete, numbered 0, 1, … with line or char beside it for what kind of text it was.
  2. Then every register, named "a, "0, "+ and so on.

Rows show the text folded onto one line, as in the registers picker. The ring keeps yank.ring.size entries (default 50; 0 turns it off).

It always inserts plain text. A linewise yank is inserted at the cursor, not pasted as a new line; for that, use p or the registers picker.

There is no preview and no recency ranking — the ring's own order is recency.


See also

  • yank-ring — the ring, its option and its commands.
  • registers — paste a register the way p does.
  • picker — keys and options shared by every picker.