In the command line, when a file name is expected, you can press Tab or Shift-Tab for the next or previous file name. After starting file name completion, you can press Ctrl-N or Ctrl-P (next and previous) with the same effect. In addition, the standard Ctrl-W is available to delete the last word before the cursor. It may happen that you browse a directory, and want to browse another directory: :e dir1/long-file-name1 :e dir1/long-file-name2 ... :e dir1/long-file-name51 Now you want: :e dir2/