vim swap files

By default, vim creates a swap file for each file you open. By default, This is in the same directory as the file you are editing. When you open, e.g., hello.txt, a hidden file .hello.txt.swp will be created in that same directory.

This may be problematic when editing very large files (which you might want to do using different tools anyway).

You can set a directory for storing swap files by adding the following to your .vimrc:

set swapfile
set dir='/some/place/where/you/have/a/lot/of/space'

You can also disable the creation of backup and swap files (temporarily) by adding the following lines to .vimrc:

set nobackup       "no backup files
set nowritebackup  "only in case you don't want a backup file while editing
set noswapfile     "no swap files

Don’t forget to remove these lines once you’re done editing that large file.