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### 19.2 Listing Existing Buffers

`C-x C-b`

  List the existing buffers (`list-buffers`).

To display a list of existing buffers, type `C-x C-b`. Each line in the list shows one buffer’s name, size, major mode and visited file. The buffers are listed in the order that they were current; the buffers that were current most recently come first.

‘`.`’ in the first field of a line indicates that the buffer is current. ‘`%`’ indicates a read-only buffer. ‘`*`’ indicates that the buffer is modified. If several buffers are modified, it may be time to save some with `C-x s` (see Save Commands). Here is an example of a buffer list:

    CRM Buffer                Size  Mode              File
    . * .emacs                3294  Emacs-Lisp        ~/.emacs
     %  *Help*                 101  Help
        search.c             86055  C                 ~/cvs/emacs/src/search.c
     %  src                  20959  Dired by name     ~/cvs/emacs/src/
      * *mail*                  42  Mail
     %  HELLO                 1607  Fundamental       ~/cvs/emacs/etc/HELLO
     %  NEWS                481184  Outline           ~/cvs/emacs/etc/NEWS
        *scratch*              191  Lisp Interaction
      * *Messages*            1554  Messages

The buffer `*Help*` was made by a help request (see Help); it is not visiting any file. The buffer `src` was made by Dired on the directory `~/cvs/emacs/src/`. You can list only buffers that are visiting files by giving the command a prefix argument, as in `C-u C-x C-b`.

`list-buffers` omits buffers whose names begin with a space, unless they visit files: such buffers are used internally by Emacs.