NANO(1) General Commands Manual NANO(1)
NAME
nano - Nano's ANOther text editor, inspired by Pico
SYNOPSIS
nano [options] [[+line[,column]] file]...
nano [options] [[+[crCR]{/|?}string] 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
DESCRIPTION
nano is a small and friendly text editor. It copies the look and feel
of Pico, but is free software, and implements several features that Pico
lacks, such as: opening multiple files, scrolling per line, undo/redo,
syntax coloring, line numbering, and soft-wrapping overlong lines.
When giving a filename on the command line, the cursor can be put on a
specific line by adding the line number with a plus sign (+) before the
filename, and even in a specific column by adding it with a comma. Neg-
ative numbers count from the end of the file or line.
The cursor can be put on the first or last occurrence of a specific
string by specifying that string after +/ or +? before the filename.
The string can be made case sensitive and/or caused to be interpreted as
a regular expression by inserting c and/or r after the + sign. These
search modes can be explicitly disabled by using the uppercase variant
of those letters: C and/or R. When the string contains spaces, it needs
to be enclosed in quotes. To give an example: to open a file at the
first occurrence of the word "Foo", you would do:
nano +c/Foo file
As a special case: if instead of a filename a dash (-) is given, nano
will read data from standard input.
EDITING
Entering text and moving around in a file is straightforward: typing the
letters and using the normal cursor movement keys. Commands are entered
by using the Control (^) and the Alt or Meta (M-) keys. Typing ^K
deletes the current line and puts it in the cutbuffer. Consecutive ^Ks
put all deleted lines together in the cutbuffer. Any cursor movement or
executing any other command causes the next ^K to overwrite the cut-
buffer. A ^U pastes the current contents of the cutbuffer at the cur-
rent cursor position.
When a more precise piece of text needs to be cut or copied, you can
mark its start with ^6, move the cursor to its end (the marked text is
highlighted), and then use ^K to cut it, or M-6 to copy it to the cut-
buffer. You can also save the marked text to a file with ^O, or spell
check it with ^T^T.
On some terminals, text can be selected also by holding down Shift while
using the arrow keys. Holding down the Ctrl or Alt key too increases
the stride. Any cursor movement without Shift being held cancels such a
selection.
Any valid Unicode code point can be inserted into the buffer by typing
M-V followed by the hexadecimal digits of the code point (concluded with
<Space> or <Enter> when it are fewer than six digits). A literal con-
trol code (except ^J) can be inserted by typing M-V followed by the per-
tinent keystroke.
The two lines at the bottom of the screen show some important commands;
the built-in help (^G) lists all the available ones. The default key
bindings can be changed via a nanorc file — see nanorc(5).
OPTIONS
-A, --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 cursor is already at that position, it jumps to the true
beginning of the line.
-B, --backup
When saving a file, back up the previous version of it, using the
current filename suffixed with a tilde (~).
-C directory, --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 (-B). The uniquely numbered files are stored in the
specified directory.
-D, --boldtext
For the interface, use bold instead of reverse video. This can
be overridden for specific elements by setting the options
titlecolor, statuscolor, promptcolor, minicolor, keycolor,
numbercolor, and/or selectedcolor in your nanorc file. See
nanorc(5).
-E, --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
converted.)
-F, --multibuffer
Read a file into a new buffer by default.
-G, --locking
Use vim-style file locking when editing files.
-H, --historylog
Save the last hundred search strings and replacement strings and
executed commands, so they can be easily reused in later ses-
sions.
-I, --ignorercfiles
Don't look at the system's nanorc nor at the user's nanorc.
-J number, --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 in your nanorc file.)
-K, --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.
-L, --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.)
-M, --trimblanks
Snip trailing whitespace from the wrapped line when automatic
hard-wrapping occurs or when text is justified.
-N, --noconvert
Disable automatic conversion of files from DOS/Mac format.
-O, --bookstyle
When justifying, treat any line that starts with whitespace as
the beginning of a paragraph (unless auto-indenting is on).
-P, --positionlog
For the 200 most recent files, log the last position of the cur-
sor, and place it at that position again upon reopening such a
file.
-Q "regex", --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.) 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.
-R, --restricted
Restricted mode: don't read or write to any file not specified on
the command line. This means: don't read or write history files;
don't allow suspending; don't allow spell checking; don't allow a
file to be appended to, prepended to, or saved under a different
name if it already has one; and don't make backup files. Re-
stricted mode can also be activated by invoking nano with any
name beginning with 'r' (e.g. "rnano").
-S, --softwrap
Display over multiple screen rows lines that exceed the screen's
width. (You can make this soft-wrapping occur at whitespace in-
stead of rudely at the screen's edge, by using also --atblanks.)
-T number, --tabsize=number
Set the size (width) of a tab to number columns. The value of
number must be greater than 0. The default value is 8.
-U, --quickblank
Make status-bar messages disappear after 1 keystroke instead of
after 20. Note that option -c (--constantshow) overrides this.
When option --minibar or --zero is in effect, --quickblank makes
a message disappear after 0.8 seconds instead of after the de-
fault 1.5 seconds.
-V, --version
Show the current version number and exit.
-W, --wordbounds
Detect word boundaries differently by treating punctuation char-
acters as part of a word.
-X "characters", --wordchars="characters"
Specify which other characters (besides the normal alphanumeric
ones) should be considered as part of a word. When using this
option, you probably want to omit -W (--wordbounds).
-Y name, --syntax=name
Specify the name of the syntax highlighting to use from among the
ones defined in the nanorc files.
-Z, --zap
Let an unmodified Backspace or Delete erase the marked region
(instead of a single character, and without affecting the cut-
buffer).
-a, --atblanks
When doing soft line wrapping, wrap lines at whitespace instead
of always at the edge of the screen.
-b, --breaklonglines
Automatically hard-wrap the current line when it becomes over-
long. (This option is the opposite of -w (--nowrap) -- the last
one given takes effect.)
-c, --constantshow
Constantly report the cursor position on the status bar. Note
that this overrides option -U (--quickblank).
-d, --rebinddelete
Interpret the Delete and Backspace keys differently so that both
Backspace and Delete work properly. You should only use this op-
tion when on your system either Backspace acts like Delete or
Delete acts like Backspace.
-e, --emptyline
Do not use the line below the title bar, leaving it entirely
blank.
-f file, --rcfile=file
Read only this file for setting nano's options, instead of read-
ing both the system-wide and the user's nanorc files.
-g, --showcursor
Make the cursor visible in the file browser (putting it on the
highlighted item) and in the help viewer. Useful for braille
users and people with poor vision.
-h, --help
Show a summary of the available command-line options and exit.
-i, --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 previous line is the beginning of a paragraph).
-j, --jumpyscrolling
Scroll the buffer contents per half-screen instead of per line.
-k, --cutfromcursor
Make the 'Cut Text' command (normally ^K) cut from the current
cursor position to the end of the line, instead of cutting the
entire line.
-l, --linenumbers
Display line numbers to the left of the text area. (Any line
with an anchor additionally gets a mark in the margin.)
-m, --mouse
Enable mouse support, if available for your system. When en-
abled, mouse clicks can be used to place the cursor, set the mark
(with a double click), and execute shortcuts. The mouse works in
the X Window System, and on the console when gpm is running.
Text can still be selected through dragging by holding down the
Shift key.
-n, --noread
Treat any name given on the command line as a new file. This al-
lows nano to write to named pipes: it starts with a blank buffer,
and writes to the pipe when the user saves the "file". This way
nano can be used as an editor in combination with for instance
gpg without having to write sensitive data to disk first.
-o directory, --operatingdir=directory
Set the operating directory. This makes nano set up something
similar to a chroot.
-p, --preserve
Preserve the XOFF and XON sequences (^S and ^Q) so that they are
caught by the terminal (stopping and resuming the output). Note
that option -/ (--modernbindings) overrides this.
-q, --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.
-r number, --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 resized. The default value is -8.
-s "program [argument ...]", --speller="program [argument ...]"
Use this command to perform spell checking and correcting, in-
stead of using the built-in corrector that calls hunspell(1) or
spell(1).
-t, --saveonexit
Save a changed buffer without prompting (when exiting with ^X).
-u, --unix
Save a file by default in Unix format. This overrides nano's de-
fault behavior of saving a file in the format that it had. (This
option has no effect when you also use --noconvert.)
-v, --view
Just view the file and disallow editing: read-only mode. This
mode allows the user to open also other files for viewing, unless
--restricted is given too.
-w, --nowrap
Do not automatically hard-wrap the current line when it becomes
overlong. This is the default. (This option is the opposite of
-b (--breaklonglines) — the last one given takes effect.)
-x, --nohelp
Don't show the two help lines at the bottom of the screen.
-y, --afterends
Make Ctrl+Right and Ctrl+Delete stop at word ends instead of be-
ginnings.
-z, --listsyntaxes
List the names of the available syntaxes and exit.
-!, --magic
When neither the file's name nor its first line give a clue, try
using libmagic to determine the applicable syntax.
-@, --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 num-
ber. 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.
-%, --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.
-_, --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 --stateflags, and a per-
centage 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 --constantshow is used, and can be
toggled on and off with M-C. The state flags are displayed only
when --stateflags is used.
-0, --zero
Hide all elements of the interface (title bar, status bar, and
help lines) and use all rows of the terminal for showing the con-
tents 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.
-/, --modernbindings
Use key bindings similar to the ones that most modern programs
use: ^X cuts, ^C copies, ^V pastes, ^Z undoes, ^Y redoes, ^F
searches forward, ^G searches next, ^S saves, ^O opens a file, ^Q
quits, and (when the terminal permits) ^H shows help. Further-
more, ^A sets the mark, ^R makes replacements, ^D searches previ-
ous, ^P shows the position, ^T goes to a line, ^W writes out a
file, and ^E executes a command. Note that this overrides option
-p (--preserve).
TOGGLES
Several of the above options can be switched on and off also while nano
is running. For example, M-L toggles the hard-wrapping of long lines,
M-S toggles soft-wrapping, M-N toggles line numbers, M-M toggles the
mouse, M-I auto-indentation, and M-X the help lines. See at the end of
the ^G help text for a complete list.
The M-X toggle is special: it works in all menus except the help viewer
and the linter. All other toggles work in the main menu only.
FILES
When --rcfile is given, nano reads just the specified file for setting
its options and syntaxes and key bindings. Without that option, nano
reads two configuration files: first the system's nanorc (if it exists),
and then the user's nanorc (if it exists), either ~/.nanorc or $XDG_CON-
FIG_HOME/nano/nanorc or ~/.config/nano/nanorc, whichever is encountered
first. See nanorc(5) for more information on the possible contents of
those files.
See /usr/share/nano/ and /usr/share/nano/extra/ for available syntax-
coloring definitions.
NOTES
Suspension is enabled by default, reachable via ^T^Z. (If you want a
plain ^Z to suspend nano, add bind ^Z suspend main to your nanorc.)
At a Yes-No prompt, ^Y can be used for "Yes", ^N for "No", and ^A for
"All". These unlisted bindings work in any locale.
When you want to copy marked text from nano to the system's clipboard,
see one of the examples in the nanorc(5) man page.
If no alternative spell checker command is specified on the command line
nor in one of the nanorc files, nano checks the SPELL environment vari-
able for one.
In some cases nano tries to dump the buffer into an emergency file.
This happens mainly if nano receives a SIGHUP or SIGTERM or runs out of
memory. It writes the buffer into a file named nano.save if the buffer
didn't have a name already, or adds a ".save" suffix to the current
filename. If an emergency file with that name already exists in the
current directory, it adds ".save" plus a number (e.g. ".save.1") to the
current filename in order to make it unique. In multibuffer mode, nano
writes all open buffers to their respective emergency files.
If you have any question about how to use nano in some specific situa-
tion, you can ask on help-nano@gnu.org.
BUGS
The recording and playback of keyboard macros works correctly only on a
terminal emulator, not on a Linux console (VT), because the latter does
not by default distinguish modified from unmodified arrow keys.
Please report any other bugs that you encounter via:
https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=nano.
When nano crashes, it saves any modified buffers to emergency .save
files. If you are able to reproduce the crash and you want to get a
backtrace, define the environment variable NANO_NOCATCH.
HOMEPAGE
https://nano-editor.org/
SEE ALSO
nanorc(5)
/usr/share/doc/nano/ (or equivalent on your system)
April 2025 version 8.4 NANO(1)
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