How do I trim trailing whitespace while preserving marks, jumplist, and search state?

Explanation

Bulk cleanup commands are easy to automate, but many implementations quietly damage editor state by moving marks, polluting the jumplist, or replacing your last search pattern. This one-liner performs a full-buffer trailing-whitespace cleanup while keeping those navigation/search affordances intact. It is ideal for save hooks and project-wide hygiene where editor state stability matters.

How it works

• :lockmarks prevents mark shifts during text changes
• keepjumps avoids recording jump locations caused by the command
• keeppatterns preserves the current search register (@/)
• %s/\s\+$//e removes trailing whitespace on all lines and suppresses "pattern not found" errors

Example

Before cleanup, assume lines contain trailing whitespace:

let total = sum(items)<space><space>
return total<tab>

Run:

:lockmarks keepjumps keeppatterns %s/\s\+$//e

After cleanup:

let total = sum(items)
return total

Your marks and jumplist remain stable, and your previous search context is still available.

Tips

• Use this in BufWritePre autocommands for non-disruptive formatting
• If you also want cursor/view preservation, wrap with winsaveview()/winrestview()
• Keep e on substitutions in automation to avoid noisy errors when there is nothing to fix