Download Vim

Vim is available for many different systems and there are several versions. This page will help you decide what to download.

Version

Vim 9.1 is the latest stable version. It is highly recommended, many bugs have been fixed since previous versions. If you have a problem with it (e.g., when it's too big for your system), you could try version 6.4 or 5.8 instead.

Vim for Windows, Unix and Mac

Windows

Recent and signed Windows files are available on the vim-win32-installer site

The latest stable version:

Zip package (32bit and 64bit) is also available:

Signed Windows builds are available from the vim-win32-installer site (v9.1.0):

Please also check the vim-win32-installer site for the latest signed versions (search for This release includes signed files).

Winget packages are also available: vim.vim (stable) and vim.vim.nightly (nightly builds)

Unix

See the GitHub page, or Mercurial, if you prefer that. There is also an Appimage which is build daily and runs on many Linux systems.

Mac

See the MacVim project for a GUI version and Homebrew for a terminal version.

Details and options for:

Unix

The best way to install Vim on Unix is to use the sources. This requires a compiler and its support files. Compiling Vim isn't difficult at all. You can simply type "make install" when you are happy with the default features. Edit the Makefile in the "src" directory to select specific features.

You need to download at the sources and the runtime files. And apply all the latest patches.

For Vim 6 up to 7.2 you can optionally get the "lang" archive, which adds translated messages and menus. For 7.3 and later this is included with the runtime files.

Using Git

This is the simplest and most efficient way to obtain the latest version, including all patches. This requires the "git" command.

The explanations are on the GitHub page.

Summary:

				git clone https://github.com/vim/vim.git
				cd vim/src
				make

Using Mercurial

This is another simple and most efficient way to obtain the latest version, including all patches. This requires the "hg" command.

The explanations are on the Mercurial page:

Summary:

				hg clone https://www.vim.org/hgweb/vim/
				cd vim/src
				make

Version 7.x, 8.x and 9.x

It contains only historic patches. There is one big file to download that contains almost everything. It is found in the unix directory:

The runtime and source files together: vim-9.1.tar.bz2

The files ending in ".tar.gz" are tar archives that are compressed with gzip. Unpack them with tar -xzf filename.

The single big file ending in ".tar.bz2" is a tar archive compressed with bzip2. Uncompress and unpack it with bunzip2 -c filename | tar -xf -.

All archives should be unpacked in the same directory. If you can't compile yourself or don't want to, look at the site of the supplier of your Unix version for a packaged Vim executable.

For Linux distributions and FreeBSD these are often available shortly after a new Vim version has been released. But you can't change the features then.

Windows

For modern Windows systems (starting with 7) you can simply use the executable installer:

It includes GUI and console versions, for 32 bit and 64 bit systems. You can select what you want to install and includes an uninstaller.

A zip package (32bit and 64bit) is also available:

If you want a signed version you can get a build from vim-win32-installer. It supports many interfaces, such as Perl, Tcl, Lua, Python and Ruby. There are also 64bit versions which only run on 64 bit Windows and use a lot more memory, but is compatible with 64 bit plugins.

You can also get a nightly build from there with the most recent improvements, with a small risk that something is broken.

Runtime files

vim91rt.zip: For all the following binary versions you need this runtime archive, which includes the documentation, syntax files, etc. Always get this, unless you use the self-installing executable.

Vim Help files in HTML Format

vim91html.zip

Extra files

libiconv: A library used for converting character sets. Put "iconv.dll" in the same directory as gvim.exe to be able to edit files in many encodings. You can find the dll file in the bin directory of the "libiconv-win32" archive.

libintl: The included libintl.dll does not support encoding conversion. If you have installed the iconv library, as mentioned above, you can install a gettext library that uses it. Get "intl.dll" from the bin directory in the gettext-win32 archive and store it as "libintl.dll" in the same directory as gvim.exe, overwriting the file that may already be there.

vim91src.zip: The source files, packed for the PC. This only includes the files needed on the PC, not for other systems. The files are in dos format CR-LF.

Macintosh

The terminal version of Vim is included as "vi", you already have it. It's lagging behind a bit though and has limited features, thus you may want to additionally install a recent version or one with more features.

MacVim

There most popular version is MacVim. This is being actively developed. This behaves like a Mac application, using a GUI.

MacVim has more a Mac look and feel, is developed actively and most people prefer this version. Most of MacVim was made by Björn Winckler.

MacVim can be downloaded here: https://github.com/macvim-dev/macvim

New versions are made quite often. Subscribe to the vim-mac maillist to be informed about bugs and updates.

Homebrew

This is a terminal version installed with the "brew" command. It is updated frequently. It can be downloaded here: formulae.brew.sh/formula/vim.

Older

Older binaries for Mac OS/X can be found on this SourceForge project. Maintained by Nicholas Stallard.

Background

Most of the work for the Macintosh port (Classic and Carbon) was done by Dany St-Amant.

If you have OSX and a setup for compiling programs, you can use the source code and compile yourself. See the Unix section above. The development tools can be downloaded from Apple's developer web site.

Turn to the vim-mac maillist to meet other Vim-Mac users.

More links

Mirrors Alternative sites to download Vim files from.
Sources Build Vim yourself and/or make changes.
GitHub Obtain Vim sources with a git client (recommended).
Mercurial Obtain Vim sources with a Mercurial client (recommended if you don't like git).
Patches Include the latest improvements (requires sources and rebuilding).
Runtime Get the latest syntax files, documentation, etc..
Script links Links to individual syntax, indent, color, compiler and ftplugin scripts.
Translations Non-English documentation packages.

Documentation

Apache/2.4.63 (Debian) Server at mirror.timecapsule.one Port 443