How do I view my complete Vim command and search history?

Explanation

:history displays a numbered list of your recently entered Ex commands, giving you a full audit of what you have run in the current session (and across sessions if viminfo/shada is enabled). It is especially useful when you want to recall a complex substitution or :g command you ran earlier but did not save to a macro.

How it works

• :history with no arguments shows the cmd history (Ex commands like :s, :g, :set)
• You can filter by history type:
  • :history / — search patterns (/ and ?)
  • :history : — same as default, Ex commands
  • :history = — expression register evaluations
  • :history @ — input line (e.g. :input() calls)
  • :history all — all history types combined
• Each entry has a number you can use to re-execute it

Example

:history

Output:

      # cmd history
      1  set number
      2  %s/foo/bar/g
      3  g/TODO/d
>     4  wq

The > marks the most recent entry.

Tips

• Press <Up> / <Down> at the : prompt to cycle through history without invoking :history
• Use q: to open the command-line window, which shows your history in a buffer you can edit and re-execute with <CR>
• The depth of history is controlled by 'history' option (default 200): :set history=1000