Emacs/docs/latest/emacs/List-Buffers
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19.2 Listing Existing Buffers
- C-x C-b
- List the existing buffers (
list-buffers
).
To display a list of existing buffers, type C-x C-b. This pops up a buffer menu in a buffer named *Buffer List*
. Each line in the list shows one buffer’s name, size, major mode and visited file. The buffers are listed in the order that they were current; the buffers that were current most recently come first. This section describes how the list of buffers is displayed and how to interpret the various indications in the list; see Several Buffers, for description of the special mode in the *Buffer List*
buffer and the commands available there.
‘.
’ in the first field of a line indicates that the buffer is current. ‘%
’ indicates a read-only buffer. ‘*
’ indicates that the buffer is modified. If several buffers are modified, it may be time to save some with C-x s (see Save Commands). Here is an example of a buffer list:
CRM Buffer Size Mode File . * .emacs 3294 Emacs-Lisp ~/.emacs % *Help* 101 Help search.c 86055 C ~/cvs/emacs/src/search.c % src 20959 Dired by name ~/cvs/emacs/src/ * *mail* 42 Mail % HELLO 1607 Fundamental ~/cvs/emacs/etc/HELLO % NEWS 481184 Outline ~/cvs/emacs/etc/NEWS *scratch* 191 Lisp Interaction * *Messages* 1554 Messages
The buffer *Help*
was made by a help request (see Help); it is not visiting any file. The buffer src
was made by Dired on the directory ~/cvs/emacs/src/
. You can list only buffers that are visiting files by giving the command a prefix argument, as in C-u C-x C-b.
list-buffers
omits buffers whose names begin with a space, unless they visit files: such buffers are used internally by Emacs.
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