What is the difference between the star register and the plus register?

Explanation

How it works

Vim has two system clipboard registers that interact with the operating system:

• "* -- the selection register (PRIMARY selection on Linux/X11, clipboard on macOS/Windows)
• "+ -- the clipboard register (CLIPBOARD selection on Linux/X11, clipboard on macOS/Windows)

On Linux with X11, these are distinct:

• "* holds text you have selected (highlighted) with the mouse. This is the PRIMARY selection, and you paste it with middle-click
• "+ holds text you have explicitly copied with Ctrl-C or a Copy menu command. This is the CLIPBOARD, and you paste it with Ctrl-V

On macOS and Windows, both "* and "+ refer to the same system clipboard, so there is no practical difference.

To use them:

• "*y -- yank to the selection register
• "*p -- paste from the selection register
• "+y -- yank to the clipboard register
• "+p -- paste from the clipboard register

Example

On a Linux system with X11:

1. Select some text in a web browser by highlighting it with the mouse
2. In Vim, type "*p to paste the selected text (PRIMARY)
3. Now copy something in the browser using Ctrl-C
4. In Vim, type "+p to paste the copied text (CLIPBOARD)

If you want Vim to always use the system clipboard for all yank and put operations, add one of these to your vimrc:

set clipboard=unnamed        " use "* for all operations
set clipboard=unnamedplus    " use "+ for all operations

To check if your Vim build supports clipboard registers, run :echo has('clipboard'). A return value of 1 means it is supported.