There is multiple cursors[1]. Checkout the video by emacsrocks[2]. You can combine that with regex tools if you need to do this over complex patterns[3]. There

There is multiple cursors[1]. Checkout the video by emacsrocks[2]. You can combine that with regex tools if you need to do this over complex patterns[3]. There is also iedit which may fit your mental model better[4]. [1] https://github.com/magnars/multiple-cursors.el https://github.com/magnars/multiple-cursors.el [2] http://emacsrocks.com/e13.html http://emacsrocks.com/e13.html [3] https://github.com/benma/visual-regexp-steroids.el https://github.com/benma/visual-regexp-steroids.el [4] https://github.com/victorhge/iedit https://github.com/victorhge/iedit