NANORC(5) File Formats Manual NANORC(5)
NAME
nanorc - GNU nano's configuration file
DESCRIPTION
The nanorc files contain the default settings for nano, a small and
friendly text editor. During startup, if --rcfile is not given, nano
reads two files: first the system-wide settings, from /etc/nanorc (the
exact path might be different on your system), and then the user-spe-
cific settings, either from ~/.nanorc or from $XDG_CON-
FIG_HOME/nano/nanorc or from ~/.config/nano/nanorc, whichever is encoun-
tered first. If --rcfile is given, nano reads just the specified set-
tings file.
NOTICE
Since version 8.0, to be newcomer friendly, ^F starts a forward search,
^B starts a backward search, M-F searches the next occurrence forward,
and M-B searches the next occurrence backward. If you want those key-
strokes to do what they did before version 8.0, add the following lines
at the end of your nanorc file:
bind ^F forward main
bind ^B back main
bind M-F formatter main
bind M-B linter main
OPTIONS
The configuration file accepts a series of set and unset commands, which
can be used to configure nano on startup without using command-line op-
tions. Additionally, there are some commands to define syntax high-
lighting and to rebind keys — see the two separate sections on those.
nano reads one command per line. All commands and keywords should be
written in lowercase.
Options in nanorc files take precedence over nano's defaults, and com-
mand-line options override nanorc settings. Also, options that do not
take an argument are unset by default. So using the unset command is
only needed when wanting to override a setting of the system's nanorc
file in your own nanorc. Options that take an argument cannot be unset.
Quotes inside the characters parameters below should not be escaped.
The last double quote on the line will be seen as the closing quote.
The supported commands and arguments are:
set afterends
Make Ctrl+Right and Ctrl+Delete stop at word ends instead of begin-
nings.
set allow_insecure_backup
When backing up files, allow the backup to succeed even if its per-
missions can't be (re)set due to special OS considerations. You
should NOT enable this option unless you are sure you need it.
set atblanks
When soft line wrapping is enabled, make it wrap lines at blank char-
acters (tabs and spaces) instead of always at the edge of the screen.
set autoindent
Automatically indent a newly created line to the same number of tabs
and/or spaces as the previous line (or as the next line if the previ-
ous line is the beginning of a paragraph).
set backup
When saving a file, create a backup file by adding a tilde (~) to the
file's name.
set backupdir directory
Make and keep not just one backup file, but make and keep a uniquely
numbered one every time a file is saved — when backups are enabled
with set backup or --backup or -B. The uniquely numbered files are
stored in the specified directory.
set boldtext
Use bold instead of reverse video for the title bar, status bar,
prompt bar, mini bar, key combos, line numbers, and selected text.
This can be overridden by setting the options titlecolor,
statuscolor, promptcolor, minicolor, keycolor, numbercolor, and/or
selectedcolor.
set bookstyle
When justifying, treat any line that starts with whitespace as the
beginning of a paragraph (unless auto-indenting is on).
set brackets "characters"
Set the characters treated as closing brackets when justifying para-
graphs. This may not include blank characters. Only closing punctu-
ation (see set punct), optionally followed by the specified closing
brackets, can end sentences. The default value is ""')>]}".
set breaklonglines
Automatically hard-wrap the current line when it becomes overlong.
set casesensitive
Do case-sensitive searches by default.
set colonparsing
When a filename given on the command line ends in a colon plus digits
and this filename does not exist, then snip the colon plus digits and
understand the digits as a line number. If the trimmed filename does
not exist either, then repeat the process and understand the obtained
two numbers as line and column number. But if the doubly trimmed
filename does not exist either, then forget the trimming and accept
the original filename as is. To disable this colon parsing for some
file, use +1 or similar before the relevant filename.
set constantshow
Constantly report the cursor position on the status bar. This over-
rides the option quickblank.
set cutfromcursor
Use cut-from-cursor-to-end-of-line by default, instead of cutting the
whole line.
set emptyline
Do not use the line below the title bar, leaving it entirely blank.
set errorcolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor
Use this color combination for the status bar when an error message
is displayed. The default value is bold,white,red. See set
titlecolor for valid color names.
set fill number
Set the target width for justifying and automatic hard-wrapping at
this number of columns. If the value is 0 or less, wrapping occurs
at the width of the screen minus number columns, allowing the wrap
point to vary along with the width of the screen if the screen is re-
sized. The default value is -8.
set functioncolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor
Use this color combination for the concise function descriptions in
the two help lines at the bottom of the screen. See set titlecolor
for more details.
set guidestripe number
Draw a vertical stripe at the given column, to help judge the width
of the text. (The color of the stripe can be changed with set
stripecolor.)
set historylog
Save the last hundred search strings and replacement strings and exe-
cuted commands, so they can be easily reused in later sessions.
set indicator
Display a "scrollbar" on the righthand side of the edit window. It
shows the position of the viewport in the buffer and how much of the
buffer is covered by the viewport.
set jumpyscrolling
Scroll the buffer contents per half-screen instead of per line.
set keycolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor
Use this color combination for the shortcut key combos in the two
help lines at the bottom of the screen. See set titlecolor for more
details.
set linenumbers
Display line numbers to the left of the text area. (Any line with an
anchor additionally gets a mark in the margin.)
set locking
Enable vim-style lock-files for when editing files.
set magic
When neither the file's name nor its first line give a clue, try us-
ing libmagic to determine the applicable syntax. (Calling libmagic
can be relatively time consuming. It is therefore not done by de-
fault.)
set matchbrackets "characters"
Specify the opening and closing brackets that can be found by bracket
searches. This may not include blank characters. The opening set
must come before the closing set, and the two sets must be in the
same order. The default value is "(<[{)>]}".
set minibar
Suppress the title bar and instead show information about the current
buffer at the bottom of the screen, in the space for the status bar.
In this "mini bar" the filename is shown on the left, followed by an
asterisk if the buffer has been modified. On the right are displayed
the current line and column number, the code of the character under
the cursor (in Unicode format: U+xxxx), the same flags as are shown
by set stateflags, and a percentage that expresses how far the cursor
is into the file (linewise). When a file is loaded or saved, and
also when switching between buffers, the number of lines in the
buffer is displayed after the filename. This number is cleared upon
the next keystroke, or replaced with an [i/n] counter when multiple
buffers are open. The line plus column numbers and the character
code are displayed only when set constantshow is used, and can be
toggled on and off with M-C. The state flags are displayed only when
set stateflags is used.
set minicolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor
Use this color combination for the mini bar. (When this option is
not specified, the colors of the title bar are used.) See set
titlecolor for more details.
set mouse
Enable mouse support, if available for your system. When enabled,
mouse clicks can be used to place the cursor, set the mark (with two
clicks), and execute shortcuts. The mouse works in the X Window Sys-
tem, and on the console when gpm is running. Text can still be se-
lected through dragging by holding down the Shift key.
set multibuffer
When reading in a file with ^R, insert it into a new buffer by de-
fault.
set noconvert
Don't convert files from DOS/Mac format.
set nohelp
Don't display the two help lines at the bottom of the screen.
set nonewlines
Don't automatically add a newline when a text does not end with one.
(This can cause you to save non-POSIX text files.)
set nowrap
Deprecated option since it has become the default setting. When
needed, use unset breaklonglines instead.
set numbercolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor
Use this color combination for line numbers. See set titlecolor for
more details.
set operatingdir directory
nano only reads and writes files inside directory and its subdirecto-
ries. Also, the current directory is changed to here, so files are
inserted from this directory. By default, the operating directory
feature is turned off.
set positionlog
Save the cursor position of files between editing sessions. The cur-
sor position is remembered for the 200 most-recently edited files.
set preserve
Preserve the XOFF and XON sequences (^S and ^Q) so that they are
caught by the terminal (stopping and resuming the output).
set promptcolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor
Use this color combination for the prompt bar. (When this option is
not specified, the colors of the title bar are used.) See set
titlecolor for more details.
set punct "characters"
Set the characters treated as closing punctuation when justifying
paragraphs. This may not include blank characters. Only the speci-
fied closing punctuation, optionally followed by closing brackets
(see set brackets), can end sentences. The default value is "!.?".
set quickblank
Make status-bar messages disappear after 1 keystroke instead of after
20. Note that option constantshow overrides this. When option mini-
bar or zero is in effect, quickblank makes a message disappear after
0.8 seconds instead of after the default 1.5 seconds.
set quotestr "regex"
Set the regular expression for matching the quoting part of a line.
The default value is "^([ \t]*([!#%:;>|}]|//))+". (Note that \t
stands for an actual Tab character.) This makes it possible to re-
justify blocks of quoted text when composing email, and to rewrap
blocks of line comments when writing source code.
set rawsequences
Interpret escape sequences directly, instead of asking ncurses to
translate them. (If you need this option to get some keys to work
properly, it means that the terminfo terminal description that is
used does not fully match the actual behavior of your terminal. This
can happen when you ssh into a BSD machine, for example.) Using this
option disables nano's mouse support.
set rebinddelete
Interpret the Delete and Backspace keys differently so that both
Backspace and Delete work properly. You should only use this option
when on your system either Backspace acts like Delete or Delete acts
like Backspace.
set regexp
Do regular-expression searches by default. Regular expressions in
nano are of the extended type (ERE).
set saveonexit
Save a changed buffer automatically on exit (^X); don't prompt.
set scrollercolor fgcolor,bgcolor
Use this color combination for the indicator alias "scrollbar". See
set titlecolor for more details.
set selectedcolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor
Use this color combination for selected text. See set titlecolor for
more details.
set showcursor
Put the cursor on the highlighted item in the file browser, and show
the cursor in the help viewer, to aid braille users and people with
poor vision.
set smarthome
Make the Home key smarter. When Home is pressed anywhere but at the
very beginning of non-whitespace characters on a line, the cursor
jumps to that beginning (either forwards or backwards). If the cur-
sor is already at that position, it jumps to the true beginning of
the line.
set softwrap
Display lines that exceed the screen's width over multiple screen
lines. (You can make this soft-wrapping occur at whitespace instead
of rudely at the screen's edge, by using also set atblanks.)
set speller "program [argument ...]"
Use the given program to do spell checking and correcting, instead of
using the built-in corrector that calls hunspell(1) or spell(1).
set spotlightcolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor
Use this color combination for highlighting a search match. The de-
fault value is black,lightyellow. See set titlecolor for valid color
names.
set stateflags
Use the top-right corner of the screen for showing some state flags:
I when auto-indenting, M when the mark is on, L when hard-wrapping
(breaking long lines), R when recording a macro, and S when soft-
wrapping. When the buffer is modified, a star (*) is shown after the
filename in the center of the title bar.
set statuscolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor
Use this color combination for the status bar. See set titlecolor
for more details.
set stripecolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor
Use this color combination for the vertical guiding stripe. See set
titlecolor for more details.
set tabsize number
Use a tab size of number columns. The value of number must be
greater than 0. The default value is 8.
set tabstospaces
Convert each typed tab to spaces — to the number of spaces that a tab
at that position would take up. (Note: pasted tabs are not con-
verted.)
set titlecolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor
Use this color combination for the title bar. Valid names for the
foreground and background colors are: red, green, blue, magenta,
yellow, cyan, white, and black. Each of these eight names may be
prefixed with the word light to get a brighter version of that color.
The word grey or gray may be used as a synonym for lightblack. On a
Linux console, light does not have any effect for a background color.
On terminal emulators that can do at least 256 colors, other valid
(but unprefixable) color names are: pink, purple, mauve, lagoon,
mint, lime, peach, orange, latte, rosy, beet, plum, sea, sky, slate,
teal, sage, brown, ocher, sand, tawny, brick, crimson, and normal —
where normal means the default foreground or background color. On
such emulators, the color may also be specified as a three-digit
hexadecimal number prefixed with #, with the digits representing the
amounts of red, green, and blue, respectively. This tells nano to
select from the available palette the color that approximates the
given values.
Either "fgcolor" or ",bgcolor" may be left out, and the pair may be
preceded by bold and/or italic (separated by commas) to get a bold
and/or slanting typeface, if your terminal can do those.
set trimblanks
Remove trailing whitespace from wrapped lines when automatic hard-
wrapping occurs or when text is justified.
set unix
Save a file by default in Unix format. This overrides nano's default
behavior of saving a file in the format that it had. (This option
has no effect when you also use set noconvert.)
set whitespace "characters"
Set the two characters used to indicate the presence of tabs and
spaces. They must be single-column characters. The default pair for
a UTF-8 locale is "»⋅", and for other locales ">.".
set wordbounds
Detect word boundaries differently by treating punctuation characters
as parts of words.
set wordchars "characters"
Specify which other characters (besides the normal alphanumeric ones)
should be considered as parts of words. When using this option, you
probably want to unset wordbounds.
set zap
Let an unmodified Backspace or Delete erase the marked region (in-
stead of a single character, and without affecting the cutbuffer).
set zero
Hide all elements of the interface (title bar, status bar, and help
lines) and use all rows of the terminal for showing the contents of
the buffer. The status bar appears only when there is a significant
message, and disappears after 1.5 seconds or upon the next keystroke.
With M-Z the title bar plus status bar can be toggled. With M-X the
help lines.
SYNTAX HIGHLIGHTING
Coloring the different syntactic elements of a file is done via regular
expressions (see the color command below). This is inherently imper-
fect, because regular expressions are not powerful enough to fully parse
a file. Nevertheless, regular expressions can do a lot and are easy to
make, so they are a good fit for a small editor like nano.
All regular expressions in nano are POSIX extended regular expressions.
This means that ., ?, *, +, ^, $, and several other characters are spe-
cial. The period . matches any single character, ? means the preceding
item is optional, * means the preceding item may be matched zero or more
times, + means the preceding item must be matched one or more times, ^
matches the beginning of a line, and $ the end, \< matches the start of
a word, and \> the end, and \s matches a blank. It also means that
lookahead and lookbehind are not possible. A complete explanation can
be found in the manual page of GNU grep: man grep.
Each regular expression in a nanorc file should be wrapped in double
quotes (""). Multiple regular expressions can follow each other on a
line by separating them with blanks. This means that a regular expres-
sion cannot contain a double quote followed by a blank. When you need
this combination inside a regular expression, then either the double
quote or the blank should be put between square brackets ([]).
For each kind of file a separate syntax can be defined via the following
commands:
syntax name ["fileregex" ...]
Start the definition of a syntax with this name. All subsequent
color and other such commands are added to this syntax, until a
new syntax command is encountered.
When nano is run, this syntax is automatically activated (for the
relevant buffer) if the absolute filename matches the extended
regular expression fileregex. Or the syntax can be explicitly
activated (for all buffers) by using the -Y or --syntax command-
line option followed by the name.
The syntax default is special: it takes no fileregex, and applies
to files that don't match any syntax's regexes. The syntax none
is reserved; specifying it on the command line is the same as not
having a syntax at all.
header "regex" ...
If from all defined syntaxes no fileregex matched, then compare
this regex (or regexes) against the first line of the current
file, to determine whether this syntax should be used for it.
magic "regex" ...
If no fileregex matched and no header regex matched either, then
compare this regex (or regexes) against the result of querying
the magic database about the current file, to determine whether
this syntax should be used for it. (This querying is done only
when libmagic is actually installed on the system and --magic or
set magic was given.)
formatter program [argument ...]
Run the given program on the full contents of the current buffer.
linter program [argument ...]
Use the given program to run a syntax check on the current
buffer.
comment "string"
Use the given string for commenting and uncommenting lines. If
the string contains a vertical bar or pipe character (|), this
designates bracket-style comments; for example, "/*|*/" for CSS
files. The characters before the pipe are prepended to the line
and the characters after the pipe are appended at the end of the
line. If no pipe character is present, the full string is
prepended; for example, "#" for Python files. If empty double
quotes are specified, the comment/uncomment function is disabled;
for example, "" for JSON. The default value is "#".
tabgives "string"
Make the <Tab> key produce the given string. Useful for lan-
guages like Python that want to see only spaces for indentation.
This overrides the setting of the tabstospaces option.
color [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor "regex" ...
Paint all pieces of text that match the extended regular expres-
sion regex with the given foreground and background colors, at
least one of which must be specified. Valid color names are:
red, green, blue, magenta, yellow, cyan, white, and black. Each
of these eight names may be prefixed with the word light to get a
brighter version of that color. The word grey or gray may be
used as a synonym for lightblack. On a Linux console, light does
not have any effect for a background color. On terminal emula-
tors that can do at least 256 colors, other valid (but unprefix-
able) color names are: pink, purple, mauve, lagoon, mint, lime,
peach, orange, latte, rosy, beet, plum, sea, sky, slate, teal,
sage, brown, ocher, sand, tawny, brick, crimson, and normal —
where normal means the default foreground or background color.
On such emulators, the color may also be specified as a three-
digit hexadecimal number prefixed with #, with the digits repre-
senting the amounts of red, green, and blue, respectively. This
tells nano to select from the available palette the color that
approximates the given values.
The color pair may be preceded by bold and/or italic (separated
by commas) to get a bold and/or slanting typeface, if your termi-
nal can do those.
All coloring commands are applied in the order in which they are
specified, which means that later commands can recolor stuff that
was colored earlier.
icolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor "regex" ...
Same as above, except that the matching is case insensitive.
color [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor start="fromrx" end="torx"
Paint all pieces of text whose start matches extended regular ex-
pression fromrx and whose end matches extended regular expression
torx with the given foreground and background colors, at least
one of which must be specified. This means that, after an ini-
tial instance of fromrx, all text until the first instance of
torx is colored. This allows syntax highlighting to span multi-
ple lines.
icolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor start="fromrx" end="torx"
Same as above, except that the matching is case insensitive.
include "syntaxfile"
Read in self-contained color syntaxes from syntaxfile. Note that
syntaxfile may contain only the above commands, from syntax to
icolor.
extendsyntax name command argument ...
Extend the syntax previously defined as name with another
command. This allows adding a new color, icolor, header, magic,
formatter, linter, comment, or tabgives command to an already de-
fined syntax — useful when you want to slightly improve a syntax
defined in one of the system-installed files (which normally are
not writable).
REBINDING KEYS
Key bindings can be changed via the following three commands:
bind key function menu
Rebinds the given key to the given function in the given menu
(or in all menus where the function exists when all is used).
bind key "string" menu
Makes the given key produce the given string in the given menu
(or in all menus where the key exists when all is used). Be-
sides literal text and/or control codes, the string may con-
tain function names between braces. These functions are in-
voked when the key is typed. To include a literal opening
brace, use {{}.
unbind key menu
Unbinds the given key from the given menu (or from all menus
where the key exists when all is used).
Note that bind key "{function}" menu is equivalent to bind key function
menu, except that for the latter form nano checks the availability of
the function in the given menu at startup time (and reports an error if
it does not exist there), whereas for the first form nano checks at exe-
cution time that the function exists but not whether it makes any sense
in the current menu. The user has to take care that a function name be-
tween braces (or any sequence of them) is appropriate. Strange behavior
or even a crash can result when the braced name is unfitting.
The format of key should be one of:
^X where X is a Latin letter, or one of several ASCII characters
(@, ], \, ^, _), or the word "Space". Example: ^C.
M-X where X is any ASCII character except [, or the word "Space".
Example: M-8.
Sh-M-X where X is a Latin letter. Example: Sh-M-U. By default, each
Meta+letter keystroke does the same as the corresponding
Shift+Meta+letter. But when any Shift+Meta bind is made, that
will no longer be the case, for all letters.
FN where N is a numeric value from 1 to 24. Example: F10. (Of-
ten, F13 to F24 can be typed as F1 to F12 with Shift.)
Ins or Del.
Rebinding ^M (Enter) or ^I (Tab) is probably not a good idea. Rebinding
^[ (Esc) is not possible, because its keycode is the starter byte of
Meta keystrokes and escape sequences. Rebinding any of the dedicated
cursor-moving keys (the arrows, Home, End, PageUp and PageDown) is not
possible. On some terminals it's not possible to rebind ^H (unless
--raw is used) because its keycode is identical to that of the Backspace
key.
Valid function names to be bound are:
help
Invokes the help viewer.
cancel
Cancels the current command.
exit
Exits from the program (or from the help viewer or file browser).
writeout
Writes the current buffer to disk, asking for a name.
savefile
Writes the current file to disk without prompting.
insert
Inserts a file into the current buffer (at the current cursor posi-
tion), or into a new buffer when option multibuffer is set.
whereis
Starts a forward search for text in the current buffer — or for
filenames matching a string in the current list in the file
browser.
wherewas
Starts a backward search for text in the current buffer — or for
filenames matching a string in the current list in the file
browser.
findprevious
Searches the next occurrence in the backward direction.
findnext
Searches the next occurrence in the forward direction.
replace
Interactively replaces text within the current buffer.
cut
Cuts and stores the current line (or the marked region).
copy
Copies the current line (or the marked region) without deleting it.
paste
Pastes the currently stored text into the current buffer at the
current cursor position.
zap
Throws away the current line (or the marked region). (This func-
tion is bound by default to <Meta+Delete>.)
chopwordleft
Deletes from the cursor position to the beginning of the preceding
word. (This function is bound by default to <Shift+Ctrl+Delete>.
If your terminal produces ^H for <Ctrl+Backspace>, you can make
<Ctrl+Backspace> delete the word to the left of the cursor by re-
binding ^H to this function.)
chopwordright
Deletes from the cursor position to the beginning of the next word.
(This function is bound by default to <Ctrl+Delete>.)
cutrestoffile
Cuts all text from the cursor position till the end of the buffer.
mark
Sets the mark at the current position, to start selecting text.
Or, when it is set, unsets the mark.
location
Reports the current position of the cursor in the buffer: the line,
column, and character positions.
wordcount
Counts and reports on the status bar the number of lines, words,
and characters in the current buffer (or in the marked region).
execute
Prompts for a program to execute. The program's output is inserted
into the current buffer (or into a new buffer when M-F is toggled).
speller
Invokes a spell-checking program, either the default hunspell(1) or
GNU spell(1), or the one defined by --speller or set speller.
formatter
Invokes a full-buffer-processing program (if the active syntax de-
fines one). (The current buffer is written out to a temporary
file, the program is run on it, and then the temporary file is read
back in, replacing the contents of the buffer.)
linter
Invokes a syntax-checking program (if the active syntax defines
one). If this program produces lines of the form "file-
name:linenum:charnum: some message", then the cursor is put at the
indicated position in the mentioned file while showing "some mes-
sage" on the status bar. You can move from message to message with
<PgUp> and <PgDn>, and leave linting mode with ^C or <Enter>.
justify
Justifies the current paragraph (or the marked region). A para-
graph is a group of contiguous lines that, apart from possibly the
first line, all have the same indentation. The beginning of a
paragraph is detected by either this lone line with a differing in-
dentation or by a preceding blank line.
fulljustify
Justifies the entire current buffer (or the marked region).
indent
Indents (shifts to the right) the current line or the marked lines.
unindent
Unindents (shifts to the left) the current line or the marked
lines.
comment
Comments or uncomments the current line or the marked lines, using
the comment style specified in the active syntax.
complete
Completes (when possible) the fragment before the cursor to a full
word found elsewhere in the current buffer.
left
Goes left one position (in the editor or browser).
right
Goes right one position (in the editor or browser).
up
Goes one line up (in the editor or browser).
down
Goes one line down (in the editor or browser).
scrollup
Scrolls the viewport up one row (meaning that the text slides down)
while keeping the cursor in the same text position, if possible.
(This function is bound by default to <Alt+Up>. If <Alt+Up> does
nothing on your Linux console, see the FAQ: ]8;;https://nano-editor.org/dist/latest/faq.html#4.1\https://nano-edi-
tor.org/dist/latest/faq.html#4.1]8;;\.)
scrolldown
Scrolls the viewport down one row (meaning that the text slides up)
while keeping the cursor in the same text position, if possible.
(This function is bound by default to <Alt+Down>.)
center
Scrolls the line with the cursor to the middle of the viewport.
cycle
Scrolls the line with the cursor first to the middle of the view-
port, then to the top, then to the bottom.
prevword
Moves the cursor to the beginning of the previous word.
nextword
Moves the cursor to the beginning of the next word.
home
Moves the cursor to the beginning of the current line.
end
Moves the cursor to the end of the current line.
beginpara
Moves the cursor to the beginning of the current paragraph.
endpara
Moves the cursor to the end of the current paragraph.
prevblock
Moves the cursor to the beginning of the current or preceding block
of text. (Blocks are separated by one or more blank lines.)
nextblock
Moves the cursor to the beginning of the next block of text.
toprow
Moves the cursor to the first row in the viewport.
bottomrow
Moves the cursor to the last row in the viewport.
pageup
Goes up one screenful.
pagedown
Goes down one screenful.
firstline
Goes to the first line of the file.
lastline
Goes to the last line of the file.
gotoline
Goes to a specific line (and column if specified). Negative num-
bers count from the end of the file (and end of the line).
findbracket
Moves the cursor to the bracket (or brace or parenthesis, etc.)
that matches (pairs) with the one under the cursor. See set match-
brackets.
anchor
Places an anchor at the current line, or removes it when already
present. (An anchor is visible when line numbers are activated.)
prevanchor
Goes to the first anchor before the current line.
nextanchor
Goes to the first anchor after the current line.
prevbuf
Switches to editing/viewing the previous buffer when multiple
buffers are open.
nextbuf
Switches to editing/viewing the next buffer when multiple buffers
are open.
verbatim
Inserts the next keystroke verbatim into the file, or begins Uni-
code input when a hexadecimal digit is typed.
tab
Inserts a tab at the current cursor location.
enter
Inserts a new line below the current one.
delete
Deletes the character under the cursor.
backspace
Deletes the character before the cursor.
recordmacro
Starts the recording of keystrokes — the keystrokes are stored as a
macro. When already recording, the recording is stopped.
runmacro
Replays the keystrokes of the last recorded macro.
undo
Undoes the last performed text action (add text, delete text, etc).
redo
Redoes the last undone action (i.e., it undoes an undo).
refresh
Refreshes the screen.
suspend
Suspends the editor and returns control to the shell (until you
tell the process to resume execution with fg).
casesens
Toggles whether searching/replacing ignores or respects the case of
the given characters.
regexp
Toggles whether searching/replacing uses literal strings or regular
expressions.
backwards
Toggles whether searching/replacing goes forward or backward.
older
Retrieves the previous (earlier) entry at a prompt.
newer
Retrieves the next (later) entry at a prompt.
flipreplace
Toggles between searching for something and replacing something.
flipgoto
Toggles between searching for text and targeting a line number.
flipexecute
Switches from inserting a file to executing a command.
flippipe
When executing a command, toggles whether the current buffer (or
marked region) is piped to the command.
flipnewbuffer
Toggles between inserting into the current buffer and into a new
empty buffer.
flipconvert
When reading in a file, toggles between converting and not convert-
ing it from DOS/Mac format. Converting is the default.
dosformat
When writing a file, switches to writing a DOS format (CR/LF).
macformat
When writing a file, switches to writing a Mac format.
append
When writing a file, appends to the end instead of overwriting.
prepend
When writing a file, "prepends" (writes at the beginning) instead
of overwriting.
backup
When writing a file, creates a backup of the current file.
discardbuffer
When about to write a file, discard the current buffer without sav-
ing. (This function is bound by default only when option
--saveonexit is in effect.)
browser
Starts the file browser (in the Read File and Write Out menus), al-
lowing to select a file from a list.
gotodir
Goes to a directory to be specified, allowing to browse anywhere in
the filesystem.
firstfile
Goes to the first file in the list when using the file browser.
lastfile
Goes to the last file in the list when using the file browser.
nohelp
Toggles the presence of the two-line list of key bindings at the
bottom of the screen. (This toggle is special: it is available in
all menus except the help viewer and the linter. All further tog-
gles are available in the main menu only.)
zero
Toggles the presence of title bar and status bar.
constantshow
Toggles the constant reporting (on the status bar) of the current
line, column, and character positions.
softwrap
Toggles the displaying of overlong lines on multiple screen lines.
linenumbers
Toggles the display of line numbers in front of the text.
whitespacedisplay
Toggles the showing of whitespace.
nosyntax
Toggles syntax highlighting.
smarthome
Toggles the smartness of the Home key.
autoindent
Toggles whether a newly created line will contain the same amount
of leading whitespace as the preceding line — or as the next line
if the preceding line is the beginning of a paragraph.
cutfromcursor
Toggles whether cutting text cuts the whole line or just from the
current cursor position to the end of the line.
breaklonglines
Toggles whether the overlong part of a line is hard-wrapped to the
next line.
tabstospaces
Toggles whether typed tabs are converted to spaces.
mouse
Toggles mouse support.
Valid menu sections are:
main
The main editor window where text is entered and edited.
help
The help-viewer menu.
search
The search menu (AKA whereis).
replace
The 'search to replace' menu.
replacewith
The 'replace with' menu, which comes up after 'search to replace'.
yesno
The 'yesno' menu, where the Yes/No/All/Cancel question is asked.
gotoline
The 'goto line (and column)' menu.
writeout
The 'write file' menu.
insert
The 'insert file' menu.
browser
The 'file browser' menu, for selecting a file to be opened or in-
serted or written to.
whereisfile
The 'search for a file' menu in the file browser.
gotodir
The 'go to directory' menu in the file browser.
execute
The menu for inserting the output from an external command, or for
filtering the buffer (or the marked region) through an external
command, or for executing one of several tools.
spell
The menu of the integrated spell checker where the user can edit a
misspelled word.
linter
The linter menu, which allows jumping through the linting messages.
all
A special name that encompasses all menus. For bind it means all
menus where the specified function exists; for unbind it means all
menus where the specified key exists.
EXAMPLES
To make Ctrl+Z suspend nano:
bind ^Z suspend main
To make Shift+Alt+C copy the marked region to the system's clipboard:
bind Sh-M-C "{execute}| xsel -ib {enter}{undo}" main
FILES
/etc/nanorc
System-wide configuration file.
~/.nanorc or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/nano/nanorc or ~/.config/nano/nanorc
Per-user configuration file.
/usr/share/nano/*
Syntax definitions for the syntax coloring of common file types
(and for less common file types in the extra/ subdirectory).
SEE ALSO
nano(1)
https://nano-editor.org/cheatsheet.html
An overview of the default key bindings.
April 2025 version 8.4 NANORC(5)
Generated by dwww version 1.16 on Tue Dec 16 03:59:23 CET 2025.