How do I display the full absolute path of the current file without leaving normal mode?

Explanation

Pressing <C-g> prints the current filename, buffer status, and cursor position in the status line. What most users don't know is that adding a count changes how much path information is displayed — turning a potentially unhelpful shortened name into a full absolute path.

How it works

• <C-g> — shows filename and position; the path may be abbreviated or relative
• 1<C-g> — prepends the full relative path to the filename
• 2<C-g> — shows the complete absolute path (equivalent to expand('%:p'))

This is especially useful when editing files with common names like index.js or main.go across a deep directory tree, where you want to confirm exactly which file is open.

Example

For a file at /home/user/projects/myapp/src/main.go:

<C-g>     → "src/main.go" line 42 of 200 --21%--
1<C-g>    → "/home/user/projects/myapp/src/main.go" line 42 of 200 --21%--
2<C-g>    → "/home/user/projects/myapp/src/main.go" line 42 of 200 --21%--

(In practice, 1<C-g> and 2<C-g> both show the absolute path; the distinction only matters for relative vs absolute on some setups.)

Tips

• Use <C-g> as a quick sanity check that you are editing the right file
• In a terminal, this is often faster than :echo expand('%:p')
• The output appears only once in the command line; it does not persist