How do I save my entire Vim workspace and restore it later?

Explanation

Vim's session feature saves a snapshot of your entire workspace — open buffers, window layout, tab pages, current directory, and more — to a file that you can reload later. This means you can close Vim at the end of the day and pick up exactly where you left off tomorrow, with all your splits, tabs, and files intact.

How it works

• :mksession saves the current session to Session.vim in the current directory
• :mksession ~/mysession.vim saves to a specific file path
• :mksession! overwrites an existing session file
• :source Session.vim restores the saved session
• vim -S Session.vim starts Vim and immediately loads the session from the command line

A session file is just a Vimscript that recreates your workspace. It records:

• All open buffers and their file paths
• Window splits and their sizes
• Tab pages and their layouts
• The current working directory
• Fold states, cursor positions, and local options

Example

You have a complex layout with three tabs, multiple splits, and several files open. At the end of the day:

:mksession! ~/sessions/project-x.vim

Close Vim. The next morning, restore everything in one command:

vim -S ~/sessions/project-x.vim

Vim reopens with every tab, split, buffer, and cursor position exactly as you left it.

Or from inside a running Vim session:

:source ~/sessions/project-x.vim

Tips

• Control what gets saved with the sessionoptions setting:

set sessionoptions=buffers,curdir,folds,help,tabpages,winsize

• Remove options from sessionoptions to avoid saving global options and mappings — this prevents conflicts with your vimrc when restoring sessions
• Create a per-project workflow: always save to Session.vim in the project root, then start Vim with vim -S from that directory
• Map session management for convenience:

nnoremap <leader>ss :mksession! Session.vim<CR>
nnoremap <leader>sl :source Session.vim<CR>

• Use :mksession! (with bang) to overwrite the existing file — without it, Vim refuses to overwrite and you get an error
• Session files do not store buffer contents — only file paths. Unsaved changes are lost when you quit, so save your files before creating a session
• You can maintain multiple session files for different projects or contexts: ~/sessions/frontend.vim, ~/sessions/backend.vim, etc.
• Neovim and some Vim plugins (like vim-obsession) can auto-save sessions periodically so you never lose your workspace state