13 Yanking

Yanking means reinserting text previously killed. The usual way to move or copy text is to kill it and then yank it elsewhere one or more times.

C-y

Yank last killed text (yank).

M-y

Replace text just yanked with an earlier batch of killed text (yank-pop).

C-M-w

Append next kill to last batch of killed text (append-next-kill).

On graphical displays with window systems, if there is a current selection in some other application, and you selected it more recently than you killed any text in Emacs, C-y copies the selection instead of text killed within Emacs.

• Kill Ring: Where killed text is stored. Basic yanking.
• Appending Kills: Several kills in a row all yank together.
• Earlier Kills: Yanking something killed some time ago.