Emacs-style switch-to-buffer (C-x b) for VS Code: one quick pick, MRU-ordered, that covers both halves of the real Emacs command:
Press Ctrl+X B and hit Enter with nothing typed → jumps straight to the previous buffer. Press it again → jumps back. Ctrl+X BEnterCtrl+X BEnter toggles between your last two buffers, like Alt-Tab.
Start typing → fuzzy-filters the full list of open buffers by name.
Usage
Keybinding: Ctrl+X B (same physical chord on every OS — not remapped to Cmd+X B on Mac, matching Emacs convention), active while an editor has focus, or while an empty split pane (no file open) has focus, so a fresh split is a valid switch target. Disabled while the integrated terminal has focus, since many shells use Ctrl+X chords of their own.
Command Palette: "Switch to Buffer: Switch to Buffer".
How it works
The quick pick always lists open buffers most-recently-used first, excluding the current one. VS Code's QuickPick widget shows items[0] pre-highlighted and doesn't reorder the list while the filter box is empty — so an empty-input Enter naturally lands on the previous buffer, with no special-case logic needed. Typing a filter hands off to VS Code's normal fuzzy matching over the same list.
Known limitations
Text editor tabs only. Terminals, webviews, notebooks, diff editors, and other custom tab kinds are not tracked or switchable.
No persistence of closed buffers. Unlike Emacs, closing a tab in VS Code discards it — there's no way to switch back to a buffer after its tab is closed.
MRU is global, not per split group, and doesn't exclude buffers currently visible in another split (real Emacs excludes buffers visible in any window from being the implicit default). Switching replaces the buffer in whichever editor group is currently active.
No persistence across a window reload. The MRU order lives in memory for the current window session only.
Requirements
VS Code ^1.85.0 or later.
Development
npm install
npm run watch # rebuild on change
Press F5 in VS Code to launch an Extension Development Host for manual testing.
npm run typecheck
npm run lint
npm test
npm run package # produces a .vsix via vsce
