msedit

Microsoft terminal-based text editor

TLDR

Launch the editor with an empty buffer

$ msedit

Open a file

$ msedit [path/to/file]

Open a file at a specific line number

$ msedit [path/to/file]:[line]

Open a file at a specific line and column

$ msedit [path/to/file]:[line]:[column]

Open multiple files in tabs

$ msedit [file1] [file2] [file3]

SYNOPSIS

msedit [OPTIONS] [FILE[:LINE[:COLUMN]]]...

msedit is a lightweight, modeless, terminal-based text editor developed by Microsoft and written in Rust. It draws inspiration from the classic MS-DOS Editor but provides a modern interface with input controls similar to VS Code. Unlike modal editors like Vim, editing is immediate with no mode switching required. It features a menu bar, status bar, mouse support, UTF-8 handling, LF/CRLF conversion, and a localized UI supporting multiple languages. The binary is less than 250 KB.On Linux the executable is named msedit to avoid conflicts with existing edit commands. On Windows it is simply edit.

PARAMETERS

-h, --help

Print help information

-v, --version

Print version information

KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

$ Ctrl+S       Save file
Ctrl+Shift+S Save As
Ctrl+O       Open file
Ctrl+F       Find
Ctrl+R       Find & Replace
F3           Next search result
Ctrl+P       Switch between tabs
Ctrl+G       Go to line/column
Ctrl+Z       Undo
Ctrl+Y       Redo
Ctrl+C       Copy
Ctrl+V       Paste
Ctrl+Q       Quit
Ctrl+W       Close tab
Alt+Z        Toggle word wrap
Alt+F / F10  Focus menu bar

INSTALL

sudo dnf install msedit

sudo pacman -S msedit

sudo zypper install msedit

brew install msedit

nix profile install nixpkgs#msedit

CAVEATS

On Linux, the executable name varies between edit (from GitHub binary) and msedit (from distro packages) depending on installation method. Has an optional dependency on ICU for Search and Replace functionality. Requires a Rust nightly toolchain to build from source. As a relatively new tool (2025), it lacks the plugin ecosystem of established editors.

HISTORY

Microsoft Edit was announced at Build 2025 in May 2025 and simultaneously open-sourced under the MIT license. It was created because 64-bit versions of Windows lacked a default CLI text editor. The project has gained significant community interest with over 13,000 GitHub stars. It will ship pre-installed with future Windows 11 builds.