Redoing after an accidental change in Vim

Question

Let's say I make 3 changes, C1, C2, and C3.

Then I undo X3. Then I redo X3. I'm back where I started.

Then I undo X3 again, but then I accidentally type ifoo<Esc>. What can I now do to recover change #3?

Answer 1

Vim is special in that it not just stores a linear history of edits (and undo), but actually all branches! You can use the g- and g+ commands to move through them, and the :earlier command to move to text states by count, seconds, minutes, etc. See :help undo-branches and :help usr_32.txt for details.

Plugin recommendations

Because that kind of navigation is still mentally taxing (and one doesn't want to get lost in a potentially huge undo tree!), the undotree.vim - Display your undo history in a graph and Gundo - Visualize your undo tree plugins provide a much better visualization, including diffs to see what changed in each state.

Answer 2

Given that sequence, you should be able to type g- (g-) one time to get back to change 3. You might want to open another instance of Vim and test it to verify it does what you want.

Type :h undo-branches for more information.