vimtricks.wiki Concise Vim tricks, one at a time.

How do I jump backward by paragraph in Vim?

Answer

{

Explanation

The { motion moves the cursor backward to the previous blank line, jumping to the beginning of the current or previous paragraph.

How it works

  • { jumps backward to the previous empty line
  • Useful for navigating through code blocks or prose
  • A count like 2{ jumps back two paragraphs

Example

first paragraph

second paragraph
with extra lines

third paragraph

With the cursor on third, pressing { jumps to the blank line above. Pressing { again jumps to the blank line between the first and second paragraphs.

Tips

  • Pair with } for quick navigation through documents
  • d{ deletes from cursor backward to the start of the paragraph
  • vip selects the inner paragraph (another useful paragraph motion)

Next

How do you yank a single word into a named register?