How do I undo all changes made within the last hour using time-based undo?

Explanation

Vim's undo history is annotated with timestamps, allowing you to travel back to any point in time using :earlier and forward using :later. This is far more powerful than repeated u presses when you need to revert a large batch of changes from a specific time window.

How it works

• :earlier {N}h — restore the buffer to its state N hours ago
• :earlier {N}m — go back N minutes
• :earlier {N}s — go back N seconds
• :later {N}m — jump forward in time by N minutes

You can also use counts based on changes ({N}) or file writes ({N}f):

• :earlier 5f — go back to how the file looked 5 saves ago
• :later 1f — jump forward to the next save point

Example

If you have been editing a file for two hours and want to see what it looked like 45 minutes in:

:earlier 1h15m

To come back to the present:

:later 1h15m

Or simply jump to the most recent state:

:later 999h

Tips

• :undolist shows the undo tree branches with timestamps, giving you context before you travel
• Time-based undo is separate from the regular undo tree — you can still use u and <C-r> after time-traveling
• Undo history is lost when the buffer is unloaded unless you have undofile enabled (:set undofile). With persistent undo, :earlier works across sessions