vim + COPY + mac over SSH

Question

I access a sever over ssh on which I run vim for editing files. When I try to yank text from vim into an editor locally on my mac (lion) either with y OR \"+y it does not work.

Answer 1

My go-to solution is to edit the file with vim from your local machine via scp.

:e scp://remoteuser@server.tld//path/to/document

This keeps your buffer local and makes it easy to copy to your local clipboard.

The other advantage is that you get to use your local vim setup (.vimrc settings, plugins, etc.)