Go To Top of File in Vim

The short answer

When in normal and visual mode, pressing gg goes to the beginning of the file.

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While gg is the most commonly used command, there are other shortcuts to bring the cursor to the first line of a file. 

• 1G
• :1
• [[

Navigating to the first top column

All aforementioned commands will place the cursor on the first non-whitespace character.

To navigate to the first column of the first line instead, you can use:

gg0 or 1G0. The addition of the 0 brings the cursor to the beginning of the line.

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Highlight sections of the code

In Vim, there are two ways you can highlight text starting from the first line of the file.

To highlight one or more lines starting from the top of the file, you can:

1. 1. Press the ESC key twice to enter Normal mode.
2. 2. Press gg to bring the cursor to the first non-whitespace character at the top.
3. 3. Press the v key to enter Visual mode.
4. 4. Use the arrow keys, the mouse, or the <line-number>gg command to widen your selection.

To highlight every line from the current cursor position to the top of the file, you can:

1. 1. Press the ESC key twice to enter Normal mode.
2. 2. Press the v key to enter Visual mode.
3. 3. Press gg to bring the cursor to the first non-whitespace character of the file.

Delete sections of the code

To delete everything from the top to the current line, you can press dgg.

To delete everything from the top to the bottom of the file, you can run the :%d command.

To delete everything from your cursor location to the top of the file, you can press d[[.

Search and replace keywords from the top of the file

To find and replace keywords from the top of the file, you can provide a range to the substitute command as follows:

:1,<line number>s/<search-key>/<replace-key>

For example, :1,7s/hello/world replaces any text from lines 1 to 7 matching hello with world. 

In addition to navigating from the top of the file, read more about how to move to the end and to a specific line of a file.