How to store grep results in a buffer in Vim?

You can go to older searches, and back easily:

:copen
:colder " goes to older
:cnewer " newer

You can have another search using lvimgrep (uses location window):

:lopen
:lnext
etc...

It also has history:

:lolder
:lnewer

You can read into any buffer:

:r!grep bla **/*.cs

Finally, any command that gives output, can be redirected with the redir command:

:redir >> file
:grep bla **/*.cs
:redir END

See :he redir for the many ways to use it (redirect into registers or variables).


Over the years of reading all kind of logs, I learned this little trick:

:%!grep pattern

It simply replaces the current buffer contents with grep output (so to go back to the original logs you have to simply press u).

You can also use it with other tools:

:%!ack pattern
:%!ag pattern
:%!rg pattern

Note that you can also run these commands on other files then the current one. The following 2 commands would replace the current buffer with results of grepping over the current file (second % character, which would be redundant for grep in this case) and otherfile.txt respectively:

:%!grep pattern %
:%!grep pattern otherfile.txt

For me it's the simplest and the best solution for fast grepping of big files in Vim and I'm pretty surprised no one ever mentioned it.


I thought that :grep results were stored by default in the quickfix window.

Try to use :copen after running a grep command. I expect that you'll find your results there.

( :cclose to close the quickfix window)

It is not really a buffer, but as long as you are not starting another search your result list will stay intact.

You can "yank" the content of the quickfix window to a new buffer.

  • Go into quickfix with :copen
  • Yank its content with yG
  • open a new buffer with :new
  • Paste the content with p
  • Save it with :w Process1.txt

Repeat and rinse for multiple search/process.


@romainl 's answer on how grep results into separate buffer or split window gives a much cleaner answer than quickfix/location lists.

:vnew | 0r!grep foo #
:tabe | 0r!grep foo #

but Quickfix lists are sort of intended for what you are doing but not the way you are doing it; however, it's tedious to set up unless it's a recurrent task.

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