How to set working/current directory in Vim?

Question

As already suggested, you can use autochdir, which will change to the directory of the file you opened, the other option is

:cd mydirectory

which will change the directory. This can be an absolute or relative path, so :cd .. will move up one level. Or you can use :cd %:h which will also change to the directory the current file is in, but without setting autochdir.

:cd

will change directory to your home directory (or on windows, print the current directory).

:cd -

will change the directory to the previous directory you visited.

Also if you are browsing the filesystem with the netrw file explorer you can set the current directory by pressing the c key.

Try adding set autochdir to your .vimrc. If you want to change it just this once, use :cd (or :cd! to force it).

I don't know what is wrong with vim. I want the directory where I start up vim as the current.

I have followed the tip about autochd above and set that to noautcd in my .vimrc.

I haven't done it yet, but I am about to start up vim like this from now on:

vim —cmd 'cd `pwd`'

That will make it stick to the current directory!

With netrw: in addition to pressing the c key to set the current directory, you may also put:

let g:netrw_keepdir= 0

in your .vimrc; this means that netrw will keep the browsing directory the same as the current directory.

Adding this to my .vimrc automatically changes Vim's working dir to the current file:

autocmd BufEnter * silent! :lcd%:p:h