Re-visit a file whose buffer I just killed

Question

I've not found any straightforward way to re-visit a file whose buffer I just killed. Sort of like undoing the killing of the buffer.

I thought about getting the file's path from Ido's virtual buffers list: if you use recentf and set ido-use-virtual-buffers to t, after invoking ido-switch-buffers Ido shows the buffer names of recently closed file buffers (not Help buffers or other buffer's that weren't visiting a file), fontified using the face ido-virtual. I need the first one of those files, but I can't find a way to retrieve it.

It's not clear what you mean by "closing" a file - in Emacs. Kill its buffer? Close its window? — Drew, Mar 12 '24 at 00:00
I thought of a different approach and asked about that on How to prompt for a virtual buffer (recently killed file) using Ido completion? There are answers to this questions on How to reopen just killed buffer, like C-S-t in Firefox Browser?, but they don't involve virtual buffers. Should I close this question? — Arch Stanton, Mar 12 '24 at 14:07
Yes, please close/delete it, if it's not really what you're asking or it's a dup. Thx. — Drew, Mar 12 '24 at 14:37
@Drew I'd rather close it than delete it, but as far as I can tell I cannot close it for good, I can only vote to close it (which I did). Can a moderator close it? — Arch Stanton, Mar 12 '24 at 17:18
A moderator can delete it or close it. I've asked for that. Thx. — Drew, Mar 13 '24 at 00:14

score -1 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 11 '24 at 23:40

You tagged your question with the recentf tag, but did you know what it meant? To quote the package documentation:

This package maintains a list of recently opened files and makes it easy to visit them. The recent files list is automatically saved across Emacs sessions.

There are three ways to access recent files:

(1) M-x recentf-open prompts for a recently opened file.

(2) When this mode is enabled, a new “Open Recent” submenu is displayed in the “File” menu.

(3) M-x recentf-open-files lists recently visited files in a buffer.

You can customize the number of recent files displayed, the location of the menu and other options. Type:
M-x customize-group RET recentf RET
To enable this package, add this line to your Init file:
(recentf-mode 1)

You may wish to peruse chapter 19.18 Convenience Features for Finding Files in the Emacs manual.

To answer the question you'd need to say how to use recentf to visit the last-closed file. How to tell which is the last one closed? It's not clear what OP even means by "close" a file, in Emacs: kill its buffer? close its window? — Drew, Mar 11 '24 at 23:59
I tagged it recentf because Ido uses recentf-list to create its list of virtual buffers. — Arch Stanton, Mar 12 '24 at 09:31

Re-visit a file whose buffer I just killed

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