How do I view only command-history entries matching a pattern in Vim?

Explanation

When command history gets crowded, scanning :history cmd manually is slow. :filter /{pattern}/ history cmd lets you narrow the output to only entries that match a regex pattern, so you can quickly rediscover complex substitutions, :global commands, or one-off refactor commands you used earlier.

How it works

• :history cmd prints your Ex command history
• :filter /{pattern}/ limits displayed lines to those matching {pattern}
• The filter applies to command output, so you can reuse it with many listing commands (:marks, :jumps, :ls, etc.)

Because filtering happens inside Vim, this workflow is faster than copying history externally and grepping it in a shell. It also keeps context in your current editing session.

Example

You remember running a substitution with keeppatterns but forgot the exact command.

:history cmd

can be noisy. Instead run:

:filter /keeppatterns/ history cmd

Now you get only history lines that include keeppatterns, making it easy to rerun or adapt the previous command.

Tips

• Use case-insensitive patterns with \c when needed: :filter /\cupdate/ history cmd
• If you frequently reuse commands, pair this with command-line window (q:) for editing before execution
• This is especially useful before writing macros, because you can recover the exact Ex command that worked and make it repeatable