How do I visually select a double-quoted string including the quotes themselves?

Explanation

Vim's text objects let you select structured regions of text with two-keystroke shortcuts. va" selects around double quotes — the quoted string plus both surrounding " characters — making it easy to yank, delete, or replace an entire string literal in one motion.

How it works

• v enters Visual mode
• a" is the around double-quote text object — it selects the contents and the delimiting " characters
• Use i" instead to select only the inner content (without the quotes)
• The same pattern works for other delimiters: va' (single quotes), va\`` (backticks), va(, va[, va{`
• Works from anywhere on the current line — Vim searches forward for the next quoted string if the cursor is not already inside one

Example

With the cursor anywhere on this line:

const greeting = "Hello, world!";

Press va" and Vim selects "Hello, world!" (with quotes). Press di" to delete only Hello, world! (leaving the empty quotes "").

Tips

• Text object motions work in Normal mode too: da" deletes around quotes, ca" changes around quotes, ya" yanks around quotes — no need to enter Visual mode first
• For nested or multi-line strings, use :set selection=inclusive and combine with % or tag-based text objects
• ci" is one of the most frequent editing operations in code: it clears a string's value while leaving the surrounding quotes in place