It happened to me countless times - forgetting to sudo before I start editing a file I don’t have permission on using Vim.

I used to save the edited file to a temporary location when the permission error prompt, and copy it back again.

Today I Learned this awesome command:

:w !sudo tee %

Command Explained

• :w !cmd - write the current buffer piped through command

• % - the filename associated with the buffer

• tee - used to store and view (both at the same time) the output of any other command

:w !sudo tee % will pipe the contents of the buffer through sudo tee FILENAME.