-A

Make the Home key smarter. When Home is pressed anywhere but at the very beginning of non-whitespace characters on a line,the cursor will jump to that beginning (either forwards or backwards). If the cursor is already at that position, it willjump to the true beginning of the line.

-B

When saving a file, back up the previous version of it, using the current filename suffixed with a tilde (~).

-C

Make and keep not just one backup file, but make and keep a uniquely numbered one every time a file is saved -- when backupsare enabled (-B). The uniquely numbered files are stored in the specified directory.

-D

Use bold text instead of reverse video text.

-E

Convert typed tabs to spaces.

-F

Read a file into a new buffer by default.

-G

Use vim-style file locking when editing files.

-H

Save the last hundred search strings and replacement strings and executed commands, so they can be easily reused in later ses‐sions.

-I

Don't look at the system's nanorc nor at the user's nanorc.

-K

Interpret the numeric keypad keys so that they all work properly. You should only need to use this option if they don't, asmouse support won't work properly with this option enabled.

-L

Don't add newlines to the ends of files.

-M

Snip trailing whitespace from the wrapped line when automatic hard-wrapping occurs or when text is justified.

-N

Disable automatic conversion of files from DOS/Mac format.

-O

Use the blank line below the title bar as extra editing space.

-P

For the 200 most recent files, log the last position of the cursor, and place it at that position again upon reopening such afile. (The old form of this option, --poslog, is deprecated.)

-Q

Set the quoting string for justifying. The default is "^([ \t]*[#:>\|}])+" if extended regular expression support is avail‐able, or "> " otherwise. Note that \t stands for a Tab.

-R

Restricted mode: don't read or write to any file not specified on the command line; don't read any nanorc files nor historyfiles; don't allow suspending nor spell checking; don't allow a file to be appended to, prepended to, or saved under a differ‐ent name if it already has one; and don't use backup files. This restricted mode is also accessible by invoking nano with anyname beginning with 'r' (e.g. "rnano").

-S

Use smooth scrolling: text will scroll line-by-line, instead of the usual chunk-by-chunk behavior.

-T

Set the size (width) of a tab to number columns. The value of number must be greater than 0. The default value is 8.

-U

Do quick status-bar blanking: status-bar messages will disappear after 1 keystroke instead of 25. Note that option -c (--con‐stantshow) overrides this.

-V

Show the current version number and exit.

-W

Detect word boundaries differently by treating punctuation characters as part of a word.

-X

Specify which other characters (besides the normal alphanumeric ones) should be considered as part of a word. This overridesoption -W (--wordbounds).

-Y

Specify the name of the syntax highlighting to use from among the ones defined in the nanorc files.

-a

When doing soft line wrapping, wrap lines at whitespace instead of always at the edge of the screen.

-c

Constantly show the cursor position on the status bar. Note that this overrides option -U (--quickblank).

-d

Interpret the Delete key differently so that both Backspace and Delete work properly. You should only need to use this optionif Backspace acts like Delete on your system.

-g

Make the cursor visible in the file browser, putting it on the highlighted item. Useful for braille users.

-h

Show a summary of the available command-line options and exit.

-i

Indent new lines to the previous line's indentation. Useful when editing source code.

-k

Make the 'Cut Text' command (normally ^K) cut from the current cursor position to the end of the line, instead of cutting theentire line.

-l

Display line numbers to the left of the text area.

-m

Enable mouse support, if available for your system. When enabled, mouse clicks can be used to place the cursor, set the mark(with a double click), and execute shortcuts. The mouse will work in the X Window System, and on the console when gpm is run‐ning. Text can still be selected through dragging by holding down the Shift key.

-n

Treat any name given on the command line as a new file. This allows nano to write to named pipes: it will start with a blankbuffer, and will write to the pipe when the user saves the "file". This way nano can be used as an editor in combination withfor instance gpg without having to write sensitive data to disk first.

-o

Set the operating directory. This makes nano set up something similar to a chroot.

-p

Preserve the XON and XOFF sequences (^Q and ^S) so they will be caught by the terminal.

-q

Obsolete option. Recognized but ignored.

-r

Hard-wrap lines at column number. If this value is 0 or less, wrapping will occur at the width of the screen less number col‐umns, allowing the wrap point to vary along with the width of the screen if the screen is resized. The default value is -8.This option conflicts with -w (--nowrap) -- the last one given takes effect.

-s

Use this alternative spell checker command.

-t

Save a changed buffer without prompting (when exiting with ^X).

-u

Save a file by default in Unix format. This overrides nano's default behavior of saving a file in the format that it had.(This option has no effect when you also use --noconvert.)

-v

Just view the file and disallow editing: read-only mode.

-w

Disable the hard-wrapping of long lines. This option conflicts with -r (--fill) -- the last one given takes effect.

-x

Don't show the two help lines at the bottom of the screen.

-z

Enable the suspend ability.

-$

Enable 'soft wrapping'. This will make nano attempt to display the entire contents of any line, even if it is longer than thescreen width, by continuing it over multiple screen lines. Since '$' normally refers to a variable in the Unix shell, youshould specify this option last when using other options (e.g. 'nano -wS$') or pass it separately (e.g. 'nano -wS -$').

-b

Ignored, for compatibility with Pico.TOGGLESSeveral of the above options can be switched on and off also while nano is running. For example, M-L toggles the hard-wrapping oflong lines, M-$ toggles soft-wrapping, M-# toggles line numbers, M-M toggles the mouse, M-I auto-indentation, and M-X the help lines.See at the end of the ^G help text for a complete list.INITIALIZATION FILEnano will read two configuration files: first the system's nanorc (if it exists), and then the user's nanorc (if it exists), either~/.nanorc or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/nano/nanorc or ~/.config/nano/nanorc, whichever is encountered first. See nanorc(5) for more informa‐tion on the possible contents of those files.NOTESIf no alternative spell checker command is specified on the command line nor in one of the nanorc files, nano will check the SPELLenvironment variable for one.In some cases nano will try to dump the buffer into an emergency file. This will happen mainly if nano receives a SIGHUP or SIGTERMor runs out of memory. It will write the buffer into a file named nano.save if the buffer didn't have a name already, or will add a".save" suffix to the current filename. If an emergency file with that name already exists in the current directory, it will add".save" plus a number (e.g. ".save.1") to the current filename in order to make it unique. In multibuffer mode, nano will write allthe open buffers to their respective emergency files.BUGSJustifications (^J) are not yet covered by the general undo system. So after a justification that is not immediately undone, earlieredits cannot be undone any more. The workaround is, of course, to exit without saving.The recording and playback of keyboard macros works correctly only on a terminal emulator, not on a Linux console (VT), because thelatter is a deficient terminal.Please report any other bugs that you encounter via:https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=nano.HOMEPAGEhttps://nano-editor.org/