Easy Kill

Select & Copy Things Easily in VS Code - a port of easy-kill for Emacs.

Features

• Drop-in replacement for standard copy (cmd+c / ctrl+c) - works with existing selections or triggers intelligent selection when no text is selected
• Quick copying/selecting with intelligent selection
• 30+ selection types: subword, word, line, sentence, paragraph, sexp, defun, function, block, string, parentheses, brackets, curlies (with/without delimiters), buffer, filename, URL, email, character search, and more
• Interactive expansion/shrinking of selections
• Emacs-like workflow for efficient text manipulation

Usage

Commands

• Easy Kill: Copy (ctrl+c / cmd+c) - Copy text at point with intelligent selection. If text is already selected, performs standard copy.
• Easy Kill: Select (alt+shift+2) - Select text at point

Interactive Selection

After triggering a command, you can interactively adjust the selection:

• Confirm (Enter) - Confirm current selection
• Expand (+/=) - Expand selection
• Shrink (-/_) - Shrink selection
• Cycle (Space) - Cycle through selection types
• Add to Count (1-9) - Add N to current count (e.g., pressing 4 when count is 1 expands to 5 instances; pressing 4 when count is -1 expands to 3 instances)
• Reset (0) - Reset to initial size (count = 1)
• Change Type (letter keys) - Switch to specific selection type (see Selection Types below)

Selection Types

Available selection types (default key bindings shown in parentheses, customizable via settings):

Text Objects:

• Subword (w) - camelCase/snake_case aware word part
• Word (W/s) - "word" (symbol in Emacs / WORD in Vim)
• Line (l) - Current line with newline
• Sentence (.) - Sentence ending with punctuation
• Paragraph (p) - Text between blank lines

Code Structures:

• Sexp (e) - S-expression or balanced expression
• Defun (d) - Enclosing function/method/class definition
• Defun Name (D) - Name of enclosing function only
• Function (f) - Alias for defun
• Block (b) - Alias for sexp

Delimited Regions:

• String (q) - String at cursor (language-aware)
• String Universal (Q) - String with any quote type
• Parentheses (() - Text including parentheses
• Parentheses Content ()) - Text inside parentheses
• Brackets ([) - Text including brackets
• Brackets Content (]) - Text inside brackets
• Curlies ({) - Text including braces
• Curlies Content (}) - Text inside braces

Buffer Regions:

• Buffer (a) - Entire buffer content
• Buffer Before (<) - From buffer start to cursor
• Buffer After (>) - From cursor to buffer end

Special:

• Filename (/) - File path at cursor
• Buffer File Name (n) - Current file's full path
• URL (u) - URL at cursor (auto-prefixes protocol)
• Email (@) - Email address at cursor
• Backward Line Edge (^) - From line start/indent to cursor
• Forward Line Edge ($) - From cursor to line end

Character Search:

• To Char Forward (f) - From cursor to character (inclusive)
• Up To Char Forward (t) - From cursor to before character
• To Char Backward (F) - From character to cursor (inclusive)
• Up To Char Backward (T) - From after character to cursor

How It Works

Copy Mode (cmd+c / ctrl+c)

1. If text is selected, performs standard copy
2. If no selection, triggers easy-kill (copy) mode:
   • Extension selects text starting from smallest match (word)
   • Text is immediately copied to clipboard
   • Adjust selection using quick pick menu
   • Clipboard updates as you modify selection

Select Mode (alt+shift+2)

1. Trigger the command
2. Extension selects text starting from smallest match (word)
3. Adjust selection using quick pick menu
4. On confirm, text is selected in editor (not copied)

Inspiration

This extension is a port of easy-kill and easy-kill-extras for Emacs, bringing their intelligent selection and manipulation capabilities to VS Code.

License

Copyright (c) 2025 Akinori Musha

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.

Repository

https://github.com/knu/vscode-easy-kill