Close all buffers besides the current one in Emacs

Question

How do I close all but the current buffer in Emacs? Similar to "Close other tabs" feature in modern web browsers?

Answer 1

For a more manual approach, you can list all buffers with C-x C-b, mark buffers in the list for deletion with d, and then use x to remove them.

I also recommend replacing list-buffers with the more advanced ibuffer: (global-set-key (kbd "C-x C-b") 'ibuffer). The above will work with ibuffer, but you could also do this:

m (mark the buffer you want to keep)
t (toggle marks)
D (kill all marked buffers)

I also use this snippet from the Emacs Wiki, which would further streamline this manual approach:

;; Ensure ibuffer opens with point at the current buffer's entry. (defadvice ibuffer   (around ibuffer-point-to-most-recent) ()   "Open ibuffer with cursor pointed to most recent buffer name."   (let ((recent-buffer-name (buffer-name)))     ad-do-it     (ibuffer-jump-to-buffer recent-buffer-name))) (ad-activate 'ibuffer) 

Answer 2

From EmacsWiki: Killing Buffers:

(defun kill-other-buffers ()     "Kill all other buffers."     (interactive)     (mapc 'kill-buffer            (delq (current-buffer)                  (remove-if-not 'buffer-file-name (buffer-list))))) 

Edit: updated with feedback from Gilles