How do I delete multiple lines in nano without affecting the clipboard?

Question

I can select all file by going to the 1st line Alt+\, start marking the text by Alt+A, go to the last line by Alt+/

But there, I don't know which key to remove the selected text. Hit delete doesn't work for me but Ctrl+K to cut the text will destroy my clipboard.

So, what is the hotkey to delete selected text?

The short answer is that nano does not provide a way to delete blocks, just cut. — Akaisteph7, Sep 12 '22 at 20:30

score 177 · Answer 1 · edited May 16 '16 at 01:21

177

nano of course can delete blocks, see this article

use CTRL+Shift+6 to mark the beginning of your block
move cursor with arrow keys to end of your block, the text will be highlighted.
use CTRL+K to cut/delete block.

To paste the block to another place, move cursor to the position and the use CTRL+U. You can paste the block as often as you want to.

edited May 16 '16 at 01:21

Videonauth

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answered May 10 '16 at 09:53

Thomas Klein

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Linux Mint seems to accept `CTRL`+`ALT`+`6` to mark the beginning of the block. – pbaldauf Dec 05 '16 at 08:42
This is a superior answer – KhoPhi Feb 15 '18 at 10:12
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The shortcut for marking the beginning of the block is actually `CTRL` + `^`. So `CTRL` + `SHIFT` + `6` might not be correct depending on your keyboard layout. – nibarius Feb 22 '18 at 09:44
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As asked, we seeks for the way that not affecting the clipboard. Thanks anyway. – Nam G VU Dec 09 '18 at 07:06

score 49 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 12 '20 at 14:37

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nano does not support deleting a block of text, only cutting it (to the server's clipboard).

Instead, if you are using Putty, do the following:

Select the text you wish to copy to the clipboard with the mouse first -- this copies it to your local clipboard (i.e. Windows 7 clipboard), which nano can't touch:
Then, select your block in nano and use Ctrl-K to delete it.
Finally, move your cursor to the position where you want to insert the text you copied in Step 1 (you can close nano, open another file, etc. too as long as you don't select another block of text with the mouse). Right-click to paste the copied text at the cursor position.

edited Jun 12 '20 at 14:37

Community

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answered Jun 22 '12 at 03:31

ish

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This doesn't work for long lines. The moment you see that $, the line will be truncated. – NightKnight on Cloudinsidr.com Feb 22 '16 at 20:07
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nano does support cutting of blocks Ctrl+Shift+6, highlight, Ctrl+k – alleyoopster Feb 06 '18 at 15:26

score 19 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 23 '20 at 19:26

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If you are trying to empty all of the lines.

A pretty elegant and simplest approach is from the bash-cli:

echo "" > filename.txt
nano filename.txt

answered Jan 23 '20 at 19:26

morgz

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This worked for me, Thank you :) – SMshrimant Jul 27 '22 at 08:30

th3pirat3 · Answer 4 · 2019-10-20T07:29:07.143

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CTRL SHIFT K

deletes current line, It can also be useful for quick editing. Thanks

Edit1:

In some of the putty streams, the following works too

CTRL K

edited Oct 20 '19 at 07:29

answered Jun 29 '18 at 07:17

th3pirat3

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Thank you alot, this is the answer! – Daniel Eisenreich Sep 25 '19 at 10:14
`ctrl+shift+k` in more than one line add incrementally into internal clipboard (of nano), and only `ctrl+k`, stores only the latest text. – danilo Jan 28 '20 at 21:09

score 6 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 18 '18 at 16:10

6

To delete multiple block without overriding your clipboard, first mark the text with Alt+A (You will appear Mark Set then select the text using arrow keys) and then use Ctrl+Shift+K to delete selected text,deleted text won't appear in clipboard.

answered Oct 18 '18 at 16:10

Lakindu Akash

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mwfearnley · Answer 6 · 2017-06-03T12:15:25.797

Sadly, nano doesn't seem to have any way of bulk-deleting without clobbering the clipboard.

The safest thing to do while staying within the document is probably to paste your clipboard before deleting, then re-cut it again afterwards.

If you have a block of text already selected, then Ctrl+U will paste the clipboard text, including it in your selected block. You can then unmark the pasted text and just cut your originally selected block.

These steps don't preserve your clipboard, exactly, but at least effectively perform a swap between your selection and the clipboard, allowing you to re-cut the lines you had in there before.

score 2 · Answer 7 · edited Dec 15 '21 at 21:04

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In Nano

Ctrl+6 to set a mark
Alt+T will delete all content in a file
Ctrl+K will delete the current line at your cursor.

edited Dec 15 '21 at 21:04

zx485

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answered Mar 17 '21 at 18:09

Akhil S

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score 2 · Answer 8 · answered Jun 03 '17 at 14:12

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You could open up a separate buffer to stash your clipboard in:

Make sure "reading into separate buffer" is enabled (you can toggle this with Alt+F)
Use Ctrl+R and press Enter (without entering a filename), to open a blank file buffer
Paste your current clipboard in there with Ctrl+U
Use Alt+< or Alt+> to switch between open buffers

answered Jun 03 '17 at 14:12

mwfearnley

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Thanks but that seems overkill the line delete need – Nam G VU Jun 03 '17 at 15:38
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Yeah, I agree.. To be honest, I'd probably recommend posting the issue as a bug report. Sadly they don't seem to have a section for feature requests, but there are existing reports with [Request] in the title. – mwfearnley Jun 04 '17 at 16:22

score 1 · Answer 9 · answered Feb 13 '20 at 10:44

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Recent versions of nano (3.2+) now have this feature if you enable the zap option. Put set zap in your nanorc (or start nano with -Z/--zap), select the text your want to delete, and hit ⌫ to delete your selection without affecting the cutbuffer.

answered Feb 13 '20 at 10:44

saagarjha

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score 1 · Answer 10 · edited Feb 19 '23 at 13:30

As pointed out by @saagarjha around version 3.2 of nano they introduced a zap command which allows you to delete text without affecting the cutbuffer.

M-Del Throw away the current line (or marked region)

To delete a line by itself use Alt+Delete with the cursor on the line you want to delete.

To delete a block of text, first set the starting mark with Alt+a and select the text to be deleted and finally press Alt+Delete.

To undo a delete, press Alt+u. To redo a delete, press Alt+e. For me redo didn't work until I disabled alt menu access keys in the preferences of my terminal emulator.

Will try alt-delete and pick yours as accepted if it's that simple confirmed. — Nam G VU, Jun 22 '20 at 01:09

score 0 · Answer 11 · answered Dec 08 '21 at 23:34

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For me (on a mac) Control + K did what I wanted (deleted a full line)

answered Dec 08 '21 at 23:34

SudoPlz

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duplicate of https://askubuntu.com/a/1324254/ – karel Dec 09 '21 at 04:00

score 0 · Answer 12 · edited Dec 26 '21 at 02:27

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Ctrl+6 (Sets the mark position)
Ctrl+- (Enter the lines nos to delete)
Ctrl+K (Delete the selection)

edited Dec 26 '21 at 02:27

Paul

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answered Dec 21 '21 at 10:23

Soumitra Karmakar

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score 0 · Answer 13 · answered Dec 08 '22 at 11:13

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Ctrl + T (opens Command to execute tab)

Ctrl + V (Cut Till End)

Tested on Ubuntu Server

answered Dec 08 '22 at 11:13

Alejandro Morales

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How do I delete multiple lines in nano without affecting the clipboard?

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