N.2 Listing Existing Buffers

C-x C-b

List the existing buffers (list-buffers).

To display a list of all the buffers that exist, type C-x C-b. Each line in the list shows one buffer's name, major mode and visited file. The buffers are listed in the order that they were current; the buffers that were current most recently come first.

`*' at the beginning of a line indicates the buffer is "modified." If several buffers are modified, it may be time to save some with C-x s (see section M.3 Saving Files). `%' indicates a read-only buffer. `.' marks the current buffer. Here is an example of a buffer list:

MR Buffer Size Mode File -- ------ ---- ---- ---- .* emacs.tex 383402 Texinfo /u2/emacs/man/emacs.tex *Help* 1287 Fundamental files.el 23076 Emacs-Lisp /u2/emacs/lisp/files.el % RMAIL 64042 RMAIL /u/rms/RMAIL *% man 747 Dired /u2/emacs/man/ net.emacs 343885 Fundamental /u/rms/net.emacs fileio.c 27691 C /u2/emacs/src/fileio.c NEWS 67340 Text /u2/emacs/etc/NEWS *scratch* 0 Lisp Interaction

Note that the buffer `*Help*' was made by a help request; it is not visiting any file. The buffer man was made by Dired on the directory `/u2/emacs/man/'. You can list only buffers that are visiting files by giving the command a prefix; for instance, by typing C-u C-x C-b.