You can use a command like :args *.c to replace the argument list with all .c files, then display those files with a command like :sall (split window to show one file per window), or :tab sall (show one file per tab). Here is another method. Put the following in your vimrc: com! -complete=file -nargs=* Edit silent! exec "!vim --servername " . v:servername . " --remote-silent " This uses the shell to send remote commands to the current instance of Vim. Then do something like this to edit multiple files: