That's probably because you confused Vim and Kakoune key bindings. Kakoune - n: next match - alt+n: previous match - shift+movement: extend selection by mov

That's probably because you confused Vim and Kakoune key bindings. Kakoune - n: next match - alt+n: previous match - shift+movement: extend selection by movement Vim - n: next - shift+N: previous match So if you press shift+N as you are used from vim, you start adding a lot of selections instead of going to previous match. I believe this difference is the most confusing for people who switch from Vim to Kakoune.