How do I toggle the case of a character in Vim?

Explanation

The ~ command toggles the case of the character under the cursor — uppercase becomes lowercase and vice versa — then advances the cursor one position to the right. It is a quick and simple way to fix capitalization without deleting or retyping.

How it works

• ~ toggles the case of the single character under the cursor
• The cursor moves one position to the right after each toggle
• If you hold ~ or use a count like 5~, it toggles multiple characters in sequence

Example

Given the text with the cursor on the h:

hello World

Pressing ~ five times results in:

HELLO World

Each character's case is flipped individually as the cursor advances.

Using with motions

By default, ~ works on a single character. If you enable tildeop, it works like an operator and can be combined with motions:

:set tildeop

With tildeop enabled:

• ~w toggles the case of the current word
• ~$ toggles the case to the end of the line
• ~iw toggles the case of the inner word

Tips

• Use g~iw to toggle the case of an entire word without enabling tildeop
• Use g~g~ or g~~ to toggle the case of the entire current line
• Use gUiw to force a word to UPPERCASE
• Use guiw to force a word to lowercase
• In visual mode, select text and press ~ to toggle the case of the entire selection
• Use U in visual mode to uppercase the selection, or u to lowercase it
• The ~ command is especially handy for fixing accidental caps lock typing — select the affected text with v and press ~