Vim mode is taking hold

• 12 June 2026
• vim-mode

I’ve written a few posts on dabbling with Vim mode and struggling to choose between it and the macOS defaults. I think Vim mode is pulling ahead. Here are some quick notes on this in lieu of thoughtful ones.

Predictably, Vim mode is feeling more and more natural to me the more I use it, which means I miss it more and more when I’m not using it. It’s not just the Vim movements I miss, as I’m pretty fast at moving around with the defaults. It’s more stuff like:

• these things (I’m guessing there’s a name for this class of operations but not sure what it is):
  • dt{char} to “delete 'til” a character;
  • similarly, ct{char} to change until a character;
  • ci{object} to “change inside” a pair of text objects, like parentheses, brackets, etc.;
  • yi{object} to “yank” (copy) inside a pair of text objects, and ya{object} to yank around (including) them;
  • I love that you don’t need your cursor inside the objects to use the inside and around commands;
• . to redo the last edit at the current cursor position;
• J to join lines;
• dd to delete the current line and copy it to the clipboard;
• Shift-v to select the entire current line, and then linewise movements to expand the selection;
  • … and then d to cut them to the clipboard, which makes moving entire lines of text around quite nice;
• thanks to modal editing, it’s usually very clear what an undo/redo is going to change.

I could go on awhile longer. The list above is just what came to mind first.

Less predictably, I’m not having trouble switching between Vim mode and the defaults. It’s feeling fine going back and forth. This is a big factor. If I were constantly littering my texts with Vim commands and then having to undo them, that’d push me toward just using the defaults.

Vim mode gives me greater consistency between my Mac and Linux machines.

Vim is still my favorite editor for using over an SSH session in the terminal, though I do use Zed for remote editing quite a lot these days (with its solid Vim mode enabled).

Out of time to write, so that’s all for now. And, disclaimer, this is not A Decision™. I reserve the right to flop straight back to the defaults at any moment!

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  TSP 2026-06-12