How do I jump to a specific byte offset position in a file?

Explanation

The go command moves the cursor to a specific byte offset from the start of the buffer. {N}go jumps to byte N (1-based), counting every byte in the file including newline characters. This is particularly useful when a compiler, parser, or binary analysis tool reports an error or point of interest by byte offset rather than line and column.

How it works

• 42go — jump to byte 42 from the start of the file
• go — without a count, equivalent to 1go (moves to the first byte, top of file)
• :goto {N} is the Ex command equivalent

Unlike {N}G (line number) or {N}| (column), go uses the absolute byte position counting from the file's beginning.

Example

A parser reports: SyntaxError: unexpected token at byte 1024. Instead of scrolling or counting:

1024go

The cursor jumps directly to the character at byte offset 1024.

Tips

• To find the current byte offset: g<C-g> shows word count, line, column, and byte position
• Bytes are counted as stored on disk — a multi-byte UTF-8 character occupies 2–4 bytes, so the byte offset may not equal the character position
• :set fileformat=unix ensures consistent newline byte counting (LF only) vs. Windows CRLF
• In binary files (vim -b file), go is the primary navigation tool alongside %xxd
• The :goto Ex form accepts the same argument: :goto 1024