Buffers and the buffer picker

When you opened example.rs in the last step, exercise.txt didn’t go anywhere. Helix keeps every file you open loaded in memory as a buffer, and switching files is really switching buffers. The one you’re looking at is just the one in front.

Space b opens the buffer picker: the list of everything that’s loaded, with the same fuzzy filter and preview as the file picker. It’s the quickest way back to a file you had open a minute ago — there’s no directory to think about, only the handful of buffers you touched.

A buffer doesn’t have to be a file. :new opens an empty scratch buffer with no filename at all, handy for pasting something you want to look at without saving it. One thing to know: Helix throws an empty scratch buffer away as soon as you leave it, so type something in first.

Work through the checklist below: make a scratch buffer, put a word in it, then use the buffer picker to move between it and this file.

Note

Buffers pile up over a long session. :buffer-close (or :bc) closes the current one, and the picker marks buffers with unsaved changes with a +.