Emacs Elements has an informative post on how to escape from a recursive edit. Unless you’re already an advanced user, you probably have only a vague notion of what a recursive edit is and you certainly aren’t going to be intentionally entering one. But, unfortunately, it’s fairly easy to stumble into one.
Even when you deliberately enter a recursive edit—the video has a typical use case—you still need to know how to exit to the main edit. The standard way to get out of a recursive edit is Ctrl+Alt+c but sometimes Emacs get wedged—especially when you inadvertently find yourself in a recursive edit—and you need to force an escape to the top level.
The video demonstrates several ways of doing this so you should definitely take a look but a good rule of thumb—although not a complete answer— is to try
- Ctrl+g
- Ctrl+]
- Esc Esc Esc
in order.
There are, as I hinted, a few nuances so be sure to take a look at the video for the complete details. The video is only 8 minutes and 21 seconds so it should be easy to fit in.
Update : Existing → Exiting.