Why doesn’t vim always give me the option to delete a swap file

vim

If I restart vim after a crash, it'll tell me that a swap file for my file exists, and ask me what to do–open anyway, recover the file, quit, abort, etc. Sometimes it gives me the option to delete the swap file, and that's usually the option I need. Other times, however, it doesn't give me that option for some reason. Why is that, and how can I get vim to allow me to delete swap files from within vim? (Because deleting it manually is a pain.)

Best Answer

From :help swap-exists:

D  Delete the swap file.  Use this when you are sure you no longer need it.
   For example, when it doesn't contain changes, or when the file itself is
   newer than the swap file.
      On Unix this choice is only offered when the process that created the
   swap file does not appear to be running.

So it sounds like Vim somehow believes another Vim process is still actively running on that file.

Related Solutions

Mac – VIM – leaves .swp files after crash

I haven't tested it, but what about this solution presented in vim's official wiki?

Swap file "..." already exists! - so diff it

Also in the situation where the recovered swapfile turns out to be identical to the real file, there is no need for the diffing.

#!/bin/bash
# Expects variables realfile, swapfile, recoveryfile.
vim -r "$swapfile" -c ":wq! $recoveryfile" && rm "$swapfile"
if cmp "$recoveryfile" "$realfile"
then rm "$recoveryfile"
else vimdiff "$recoveryfile" "$realfile"
fi

There's a script for this problem as well in Stackoverflow.

This will remove any swap files that are up-to-date with the real files. Any that don't match are brought up in a vimdiff window so I can merge in my unsaved changes.

Vim – automatically delete SWP file after recovery doesn’t change the original file

Note: you haven’t said which operating system you’re using. The following works with a Unix shell but if running Windows, you could download a bare-bones Cygwin or some other shell.

I used to do the same as you, run :e to re-open the same file to get the option to delete the recovery file. After a crash or unexpected computer restart, I clean up all the remnant Vim recovery files by running vim -r on the swap files and letting the recovery proceed.

When files have not changed

If the files haven’t changed, I want to delete the recovery file immediately. It would be great if Vim could do this automatically but unfortunately, it doesn’t.

When files have changed

If the files have changed, I run the DiffOrig command to compare the differences between the original and the recovered versions. If I’m happy with the changes from the recovery file, I exit by saving the files with the :x command. If not, I discard the recovered changes by quitting with :q!. If the recovery file isn’t associated with a saved file, e.g, .swp, I usually use the :w filename to save the recovered buffer to a file with a filename.

DiffOrig helper

I added the DiffOrig command to my .vimrc so that it’s always available.

command DiffOrig vert new | set bt=nofile | r # | 0d_ | diffthis | wincmd p | diffthis

Shell script

I run the following script in my shell to find every swap-file in the current directory tree. Each swap-file is then used to open Vim in “recovery mode” and is then deleted after Vim is closed.

find . -type f -name '.*.sw?' -exec vim -r "{}" -c DiffOrig \; -exec rm -iv "{}" \;

The rm -i option requires confirmation (y) to delete the file. If you’re more confident and want to speed up the process, this can be omitted.