MOE(1)

📦
version 1.16 · 3 versions
, in fedora 44, nixos 26.05, nixpkgs unstable

🌸 MOE(1) 🌸

okay so bestie, welcome to moe — that's My Own (text) Editor, and yes it's a whole section-1 manual page, we're doing this 💅

✨ NAME ✨

moe — My Own (text) Editor 🎀

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

moe [global_options] [[+[line[,col]]] file_name [file_options]]...

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

GNU moe is a console text editor, and it's built for ISO-8859 and ASCII character encodings. No cap. And the vibe? Modeless, user-friendly interface, online help, multiple windows, global search/replace (and not me saying it does that on all buffers at once 😭), block operations, automatic indentation, word wrapping, file name completion, a directory browser, duplicate removal from prompt histories, delimiter matching, text conversion from/to UTF-8, romanization, etc. The file size, line length, number of buffers, and undo/redo capability are only limited by the amount of memory available and the size of the address space of your machine. it's giving infinite aura ✨

Moe respects your work. 🫶 By default it won't automatically add, change, or remove a single byte in your files. Moe is a WYTIWYG (what you type is what you get) editor. periodt.

Moe can easily edit thousands of files at the same time. main character energy fr fr 👑

global_options are a mix of editor options and default file_options. Most long option names have a negative form: --backup --no-backup. iconic.

Each file name may be preceded by +[line[,column]] to start the cursor at the line, and optionally column, specified. line and column are applied to subsequent files until new values are specified for them. A + alone puts the cursor at end-of-buffer. so cute, so useful 💜

A hyphen - used as a file name argument means standard input. Directories are recursively descended into. yes bestie, it goes in 🌀

🌈 Editor options:

  • -h, --help — display this help and exit
  • -V, --version — output version information and exit
  • -b, --backup — create backup files (this is the default, bestie 💾)
  • -B, --no-backup — don't create backup files (living dangerously, love that for you)
  • -e, --exit-ask — make save-and-close ask always for confirmation
  • -H, --smart-home — go home, then go to first non-blank character
  • -i, --ignore-case — make search case insensitive by default
  • -k, --keep-lines=<n> — number of lines to keep for PgUp/PgDn
  • -m, --max-windows=<n> — max number of windows to show at once
  • -n, --indent-step=<n> — number of spaces to add when indenting a block
  • -p, --preserve-links — preserve (don't break) links when saving files
  • -s, --search-wrap — make search wrap at end of file
  • -u, --auto-unmark — turn off highlighting after any block operation
  • -x, --rectangle — rectangular block mode

🎀 File options:

  • -a, --auto-indent — enable auto indent
  • -l, --lmargin=<col> — set left margin
  • -r, --rmargin=<col> — set right margin
  • -o, --read-only — make buffer read-only
  • -O, --overwrite — disable insert mode
  • -w, --word-wrap — enable word wrapping
  • -W, --no-word-wrap — disable word wrapping
  • -2, --two-spaces — make reformat put two spaces after period

⭐ EXIT STATUS ⭐

  • 0 — for a normal exit 🥳
  • 1 — for environmental problems (invalid command-line options, I/O errors, etc) 😬
  • 2 — to indicate an invalid or unreadable input file 💀
  • 3 — for an internal consistency error (e.g., bug) which caused moe to panic 😭

🐛 REPORTING BUGS 🐛

Report bugs to bug-moe@gnu.org — tell them everything bestie, they wanna know 🫶

Moe home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/moe/moe.html

General help using GNU software: http://www.gnu.org/gethelp

Copyright © 2026 Antonio Diaz Diaz. License GPLv2+: GNU GPL version 2 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>

This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. (say it louder for the people in the back 📣)

🧚 SEE ALSO 🧚

The full documentation for moe is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and moe programs are properly installed at your site, the command

info moe

should give you access to the complete manual. go read it, it's a whole thing 🌸

and that's the whole page bestie 💖 this was GNU moe 1.16, dropped February 2026 — slay, ate, no crumbs, and it's still just MOE(1) at the end of the day 🎀✨

📦 where this page comes from