正如Alex Moore-Niemi所指出的，这适用于Mac:

set backupdir=$TMPDIR//
set directory=$TMPDIR//

确保使用TMPDIR而不是TEMPDIR。

如果您正在使用源代码控制。Vim临时文件非常无用。 因此，您可能希望配置vim不创建它们。

只需编辑您的~/。Vimrc并添加这些行:

set nobackup
set noswapfile

或者，您可以配置vim以将交换文件保存到单独的位置， 例如，在你的.vimrc文件中添加如下代码行:

set backupdir=$TEMP//
set directory=$TEMP//

有关更多信息，请参阅这个vim技巧。

下面是生成交换文件扩展名的实际VIM代码:

/* 
 * Change the ".swp" extension to find another file that can be used. 
 * First decrement the last char: ".swo", ".swn", etc. 
 * If that still isn't enough decrement the last but one char: ".svz" 
 * Can happen when editing many "No Name" buffers. 
 */
if (fname[n - 1] == 'a')        /* ".s?a" */
{   
    if (fname[n - 2] == 'a')    /* ".saa": tried enough, give up */
    {   
        EMSG(_("E326: Too many swap files found"));
        vim_free(fname);
        fname = NULL;
        break;  
    }
    --fname[n - 2];             /* ".svz", ".suz", etc. */
    fname[n - 1] = 'z' + 1;
}
--fname[n - 1];                 /* ".swo", ".swn", etc. */

这将生成如下格式的交换文件:

[._]*.s[a-v][a-z]
[._]*.sw[a-p]
[._]s[a-v][a-z]
[._]sw[a-p]

这几乎是包括在github自己的gitignore文件VIM。

正如其他人所正确指出的那样，这个.gitignore也会忽略.svg图像文件和.swf adobe flash文件。

# VIM: Temperory files
*~

# VIM: Swap-files
[._]*.s[a-w][a-z]
[._]s[a-w][a-z]

# VIM: Commands :cs, :ctags
tags
cscope.*

# VIM session
Session.vim

# VIM: netrw.vim: Network oriented reading, writing, browsing (eg: ftp scp) 
.netrwhist

The name of the swap file is normally the same as the file you are editing, with the extension ".swp". On Unix, a '.' is prepended to swap file names in the same directory as the edited file. This avoids that the swap file shows up in a directory listing. On MS-DOS machines and when the 'shortname' option is on, any '.' in the original file name is replaced with '_'. If this file already exists (e.g., when you are recovering from a crash) a warning is given and another extension is used, ".swo", ".swn", etc. An existing file will never be overwritten. The swap file is deleted as soon as Vim stops editing the file. The replacement of '.' with '_' is done to avoid problems with MS-DOS compatible filesystems (e.g., crossdos, multidos).

http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/recover.html

http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=1075

在“git commit”之前退出vim。

要使vim使用其他文件夹作为备份文件(例如/tmp):

set bdir-=.
set bdir+=/tmp

要使vim停止使用当前文件夹的。swp文件:

set dir-=.
set dir+=/tmp

使用-=，+=通常会很好，因为vim对bdir, dir有其他默认值，我们不想全部清除。查看vim帮助以获得更多关于bdir, dir的信息:

:h bdir
:h dir