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micro(1) General Commands Manual micro(1)

NAME

micro - A modern and intuitive terminal-based text editor

SYNOPSIS

micro [OPTION]... [FILE]... [+LINE[:COL]] [+/REGEX]
micro [OPTION]... [FILE[:LINE[:COL]]]... (only if the `parsecursor` option is enabled)

DESCRIPTION

Micro is a terminal-based text editor that aims to be easy to use and intuitive, while also taking advantage of the full capabilities of modern terminals. It comes as one single, batteries-included, static binary with no dependencies.

As the name indicates, micro aims to be somewhat of a successor to the nano editor by being easy to install and use in a pinch, but micro also aims to be enjoyable to use full time, whether you work in the terminal because you prefer it (like me), or because you need to (over ssh).

Use Ctrl-q to quit, Ctrl-s to save, and Ctrl-g to open the in-editor help menu.

OPTIONS

-clean

Clean the configuration directory and exit

-config-dir dir

Specify a custom location for the configuration directory

FILE:LINE[:COL] (only if the `parsecursor` option is enabled)
FILE +LINE[:COL]

Specify a line and column to start the cursor at when opening a buffer

+/REGEX

Specify a regex to search for when opening a buffer

-options

Show all options help and exit

-debug

Enable debug mode (enables logging to ./log.txt)

-profile

Enable CPU profiling (writes profile info to ./micro.prof so it can be analyzed later with "go tool pprof micro.prof")

-version

Show the version number and information and exit

Micro's plugins can be managed at the command line with the following commands.

-plugin install [PLUGIN]...

Install plugin(s)

-plugin remove [PLUGIN]...

Remove plugin(s)

-plugin update [PLUGIN]...

Update plugin(s) (if no argument is given, updates all plugins)

-plugin search [PLUGIN]...

Search for a plugin

-plugin list

List installed plugins

-plugin available

List available plugins

Micro's options can also be set via command line arguments for quick adjustments. For real configuration, please use the settings.json file (see 'help options').

-<option> value

Set `option` to `value` for this session.
For example: `micro -syntax off file.c`

Use `micro -options` to see the full list of configuration options.

CONFIGURATION

Micro uses $MICRO_CONFIG_HOME as the configuration directory. If this environment variable is not set, it uses $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/micro instead. If that environment variable is not set, it uses ~/.config/micro as the configuration directory. In the documentation, we use ~/.config/micro to refer to the configuration directory (even if it may in fact be somewhere else if you have set either of the above environment variables).

NOTICE

This manpage is intended only to serve as a quick guide to the invocation of micro and is not intended to replace the full documentation included with micro which can be accessed from within micro. Micro tells you what key combination to press to get help in the lower right.

BUGS

A comprehensive list of bugs will not be listed in this manpage. See the Github page at https://github.com/zyedidia/micro/issues for a list of known bugs and to report any newly encountered bugs you may find. We strive to correct bugs as swiftly as possible.

COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 2020 Zachary Yedidia, et al. MIT license. See https://github.com/zyedidia/micro for details.

2025-09-03