Weekly Emacs tip #23 — Configure Emacs to accept short answers

A short one this time.

For some questions — for example, if there are still unsaved buffers when you exit Emacs — Emacs will ask you to confirm by typing yes or no. While this helps against mistakes, I also find it annoying to have to type the whole word — even though we’re only talking about two or three letters.

Luckily, since Emacs 28 there is a simple solution to this. Simply add the following to your ~/.emacs file:

(setopt use-short-answers t)

With that option set, a simple y or n suffices.

If, like me, you organise your Emacs config file with use-package, you can set the option in the :custom section of your (use-package emacs) block:

(use-package emacs
:custom
;; Always ask for y/n keypress instead of typing out 'yes' or 'no'
(use-short-answers t)
)