How do I move the cursor to the other end of a visual selection without restarting it?

Explanation

In visual mode, pressing o swaps the cursor between the two ends of the selection (the anchor and the free end). The selection itself stays exactly as it is — you just reposition which end you're actively extending from. This lets you adjust either boundary of a selection without canceling and re-selecting.

How it works

• When you start a visual selection, the start point is the anchor and the cursor is the free end
• Pressing o jumps the cursor to the anchor position, making it the new free end, while the original cursor position becomes the new anchor
• You can then extend or shrink the selection from the other side
• Works in v (characterwise) and V (linewise) visual modes

Example

You visually select a block by pressing v and moving down. You realize you started one line too late:

Step 1: Press v on line 3, extend to line 7 → cursor is at line 7
Step 2: Press o → cursor jumps to line 3 (the anchor)
Step 3: Press k → selection now starts at line 2, ends at line 7

Without o, you'd have to exit visual mode, reposition, and re-select.

Tips

• In <C-v> (visual block) mode, use O instead to move to the diagonally opposite corner of the block
• Combine with gv (reselect last visual selection) to recover and adjust a selection after accidentally pressing <Esc>
• Works seamlessly with text objects: select vip to grab a paragraph, then o to jump to its top and extend upward