Skip to content

How to exit Vim

Let me help you finally exit Vim!

Want to save your changes and exit? Press the esc key, then type :wq, which means write and quit.

Want to exit without saving changes? Press the esc key, then type :q!

Don’t feel bad, you’re not alone in not knowing how to exit Vim,, and if you search Twitter you’ll see all sorts of memes and funny tweets:

It also looks to be one (if not the one) most popular question on Stack Overflow.

Don’t get me wrong. I like Vim. I don’t love it, it’s just a tool. I usually use VS Code for day to day writing and coding, but I sometimes use it.

→ Get my Linux Command Line Handbook

I wrote 17 books to help you become a better developer, download them all at $0 cost by joining my newsletter

JOIN MY CODING BOOTCAMP, an amazing cohort course that will be a huge step up in your coding career - covering React, Next.js - next edition February 2025

Bootcamp 2025

Join the waiting list