How do I jump back and forth between my two most recent cursor positions?

Explanation

Vim maintains a jumplist — a history of every "jump" you make (searches, marks, gg, G, %, etc.). Pressing <C-o> moves backward through this list, and <C-i> moves forward. This is your browser-style back/forward for code navigation.

How it works

• <C-o> — jump to the older position in the jumplist (go back)
• <C-i> — jump to the newer position (go forward)
• Each jump stores the exact file, line, and column

What counts as a jump

Not every movement is a jump. These are jumps:

• /search, ?search, *, #
• gg, G, {N}G
• {, }, (, ) (paragraph/sentence motions)
• % (bracket matching)
• Mark jumps: 'a, `a
• H, M, L (screen positioning)
• :tag, gd, gf, <C-]>

These are not jumps: j, k, w, b, e, f, t

View the jumplist

:jumps

Shows a numbered list of all positions with file and line info.

Example workflow

1. You're editing main.go at line 50
2. Press * to search for a word — jumps to line 120
3. Press gd to go to its definition — jumps to line 10
4. Press <C-o> — back to line 120
5. Press <C-o> — back to line 50
6. Press <C-i> — forward to line 120

Tips

• The jumplist works across files — <C-o> can take you to a completely different buffer
• Vim stores up to 100 entries in the jumplist per window
• The jumplist is per-window, not per-buffer
• This is arguably the most important navigation feature after search — learn to use it reflexively