Feel free to close this as a dupe if you can find a question that deals with this case.This is NOT about HOW to recover a .swp file in vi.I'm not sure if I want to recover.  I want to preview what I'll be changing if I do, and in a non destructive way.Unfortunately typing vi .myfile.swp shows me what looks like binary gobblety gook.To make my current state clear, I believe no one is currently editing the file.  I happen to be looking at an overzealous copy of a dir that apparently happened while the file was open. My current plan is to copy myfile to myfile-temp and then recover myfile.  Then inspect for differences.Is there a better way?  
Inspecting vi .swp file to preview recovery
vim;data recovery