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

gvimvim

When the Vim process is abruptly terminated (e.g. system crash), it leaves a SWP file. Opening the original file in Vim later gives the option of recovery. Most of the time the recovered file is the same as the saved file, because I have a habit of saving often. Then Vim says:

Recovery completed. Buffer contents equals file contents. 
You may want to delete the .swp file now.

Well, of course I want to delete the .swp file now!

How can I get Vim to always delete the SWP file automatically in this case?

There seems to be no built-in setting to do this, so I'm looking for an appropriate autocommand event.

One way I found is to :e # after the message, which causes the swap-exists options to appear again, then I can "Delete It". But I shouldn't really have to do those extra steps each time.

Best Answer

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.

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.

Mac – Where does VIM (gvim/macvim) keep swap files for unsaved/unnamed buffers

Start up vim and try:

:recover <filename>

If the file never had a name, then simply:

:recover

That's your best bet. For more about swap files and recovery, see:

:help usr_11

About the swap files, typically they're saved in the same directory as the file being edited, but with a . added the beginning to make it hidden and .swp at the end, but it's possible to move them elsewhere by something like:

:set directory=~/vimswap

or similar.

See:

:help swap

For all the details.

A vim swap file is not the same as the edited buffer, however, so be sure to read up there on what can be done for recovery.

EDIT: comments answering the question:

[…] It seems to look in your current working directory, ~/tmp, /var/tmp and /tmp for swap files and in my case I always have a current working directory set and that's where it got saved. – dsclementsen Oct 5 '10 at 1:42

also, be sure to check out the vim -r command line arg. This will print out all the swap files found and where they are. In addtion it will have a lot of extra information such as date/modified/username/etc... – Neg_EV Oct 5 '10 at 13:49