30.17 Editing the Dired Buffer

Wdired is a special mode that allows you to perform file operations by editing the Dired buffer directly (the “W” in “Wdired” stands for “writable”). To enter Wdired mode, type C-x C-q ( dired-toggle-read-only) while in a Dired buffer. Alternatively, use the ‘ Immediate / Edit File Names’ menu item.

While in Wdired mode, you can rename files by editing the file names displayed in the Dired buffer. All the ordinary Emacs editing commands, including rectangle operations and query-replace, are available for this. Once you are done editing, type C-c C-c ( wdired-finish-edit). This applies your changes and switches back to ordinary Dired mode.

Apart from simply renaming files, you can move a file to another directory by typing in the new file name (either absolute or relative). To mark a file for deletion, delete the entire file name. To change the target of a symbolic link, edit the link target name which appears next to the link name.

If you edit the file names to create a new subdirectory, Wdired will automatically create these new directories. To inhibit this behavior, set wdired-create-parent-directories to nil.

The rest of the text in the buffer, such as the file sizes and modification dates, is marked read-only, so you can’t edit it. However, if you set wdired-allow-to-change-permissions to t, you can edit the file permissions. For example, you can change ‘ -rw-r--r--’ to ‘ -rw-rw-rw-’ to make a file world-writable. These changes also take effect when you type C-c C-c.