How do I hide or replace the ~ characters that appear at the end of a buffer?

Explanation

By default, Vim fills empty lines after the end of a buffer with ~ characters. While these mark where the file ends, many users find them visually distracting. The fillchars option lets you replace them with any character — including a plain space to make them invisible.

How it works

• fillchars controls characters used for various UI elements: eob (end of buffer), fold, diff, vert (vertical split), and others.
• eob: sets the end-of-buffer fill character to a space, effectively hiding the ~ markers.
• The += syntax appends to the existing value rather than replacing all fill characters.
• This setting is purely cosmetic — Vim still knows where the file ends.

Example

Before:

  1 Last line of file
  2 ~
  3 ~
  4 ~

After :set fillchars+=eob: :

  1 Last line of file
  2  
  3  
  4  

Tips

• Use a Unicode character to replace ~ with something subtle instead of hiding it:

set fillchars+=eob:·

• Customize multiple fill characters at once:

set fillchars=eob: ,fold:·,vert:│

• fold replaces the dashes (------) on folded lines; vert replaces the | on vertical split separators for a cleaner look with Nerd Font box-drawing characters.