How do I move to the end of the visible screen line when text is soft-wrapped?

Explanation

The g$ command moves the cursor to the last character of the current screen line, not the end of the logical line. This distinction matters when 'wrap' is enabled and a long line spans multiple rows on screen.

Vim distinguishes between logical lines (lines separated by newlines) and screen lines (rows rendered on the display). The standard $ motion always jumps to the end of the logical line, skipping past any wrapped portions. g$ stops at the edge of what is currently visible in the row the cursor is on.

How it works

• g — prefix that switches many motions to operate on screen lines instead of logical lines
• $ — move to end of line

The full family of screen-line motions:

g0   " first character of screen line
g^   " first non-blank character of screen line
gj   " move down one screen line
gk   " move up one screen line
g$   " last character of screen line

Example

With 'wrap' on and a long logical line that wraps:

This is a very long sentence that wraps onto
a second screen row inside the editor window.

With the cursor at the start of the first screen row:

• Pressing $ → jumps to the period at the very end of the second screen row
• Pressing g$ → stops at the o at the end of the first screen row (...wraps onto)

Tips

• Pair g0 and g$ when editing wrapped prose or Markdown files where lines intentionally exceed textwidth
• Combine with operators: dg$ deletes from the cursor to the end of the current screen line only
• If 'wrap' is off, g$ behaves identically to $
• Use gj/gk to navigate wrapped lines and g$ to reach their ends without jumping to the logical end