How do I close all buffers that aren't shown in a window in vim?

Question

I have a horde of buffers open in vim, with only a few of them open in split windows or on other tabs. Is there a way to close all but the ones that are currently visible in one of those splits or tabs?

Answer 1

Yet another take on this. Using the example given in the Vim help for tabpagebuflist() to get a list of the buffers that appear in a tab or window. I have the below in my .vimrc

function! DeleteInactiveBufs()
    "From tabpagebuflist() help, get a list of all buffers in all tabs
    let tablist = []
    for i in range(tabpagenr('$'))
        call extend(tablist, tabpagebuflist(i + 1))
    endfor

    "Below originally inspired by Hara Krishna Dara and Keith Roberts
    "http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/vim/message/56425
    let nWipeouts = 0
    for i in range(1, bufnr('$'))
        if bufexists(i) && !getbufvar(i,"&mod") && index(tablist, i) == -1
        "bufno exists AND isn't modified AND isn't in the list of buffers open in windows and tabs
            silent exec 'bwipeout' i
            let nWipeouts = nWipeouts + 1
        endif
    endfor
    echomsg nWipeouts . ' buffer(s) wiped out'
endfunction
command! Bdi :call DeleteInactiveBufs()

Answer 2

Here's an alternative solution you can drop in your .vimrc:

function! Wipeout()
  " list of *all* buffer numbers
  let l:buffers = range(1, bufnr('$'))

  " what tab page are we in?
  let l:currentTab = tabpagenr()
  try
    " go through all tab pages
    let l:tab = 0
    while l:tab < tabpagenr('$')
      let l:tab += 1

      " go through all windows
      let l:win = 0
      while l:win < winnr('$')
        let l:win += 1
        " whatever buffer is in this window in this tab, remove it from
        " l:buffers list
        let l:thisbuf = winbufnr(l:win)
        call remove(l:buffers, index(l:buffers, l:thisbuf))
      endwhile
    endwhile

    " if there are any buffers left, delete them
    if len(l:buffers)
      execute 'bwipeout' join(l:buffers)
    endif
  finally
    " go back to our original tab page
    execute 'tabnext' l:currentTab
  endtry
endfunction

Use :call Wipeout().

Answer 3

Add this to your .vimrc:

function! CloseHiddenBuffers()
  let i = 0
  let n = bufnr('$')
  while i < n
    let i = i + 1
    if bufloaded(i) && bufwinnr(i) < 0
      exe 'bd ' . i
    endif
  endwhile
endfun

Then you can do this to close hidden buffers:

:call CloseHiddenBuffers()

(You'll probably want to bind a key or a command to it.)

Update:

Here's a version updated to support tab pages. (I don't use tab pages myself, so I hadn't realized that bufwinnr only works for windows on the current page).

function! CloseHiddenBuffers()
  " figure out which buffers are visible in any tab
  let visible = {}
  for t in range(1, tabpagenr('$'))
    for b in tabpagebuflist(t)
      let visible[b] = 1
    endfor
  endfor
  " close any buffer that's loaded and not visible
  for b in range(1, bufnr('$'))
    if bufloaded(b) && !has_key(visible, b)
      exe 'bd ' . b
    endif
  endfor
endfun