06/24/2026

Pipe terminal output directly to vim without creating a file

With

command | vim -

The - tells vim to read the buffer from stdin instead of opening a file.

Useful examples I use regularly

Docker stuff

docker logs my-container 2>&1 | vim -

docker ps -a | vim -

docker images | vim -

docker compose logs 2>&1 | vim -

Search git diff

git diff | vim -

Search env vars

printenv | sort | vim -

Search processes

ps aux | vim -