Thank you for the helpful reply. I was missing this option -e I added alias nnn='nnn -e' export VISUAL="gvim -v" to my .bashrc and it really is much cleaner

Thank you for the helpful reply. I was missing this option -e I added alias nnn='nnn -e' export VISUAL="gvim -v" to my .bashrc and it really is much cleaner/nicer than using vim . so I think I will swtich to nnn