get buffers list to startup state without resorting to M-x kill-emacs

Question

Sometimes, when work is finished on one github/issues, its helpful to "reset" the list of opened files. So far I've been doing M-x kill-emacs and then restart, but that's a bit heavy handed.

I tried this tip , that did kill actual file buffers. I want to to be able to reset things so that this kind of "miscellaneous" buffers aren't laying around:

*scratch* can stay, because it was there when emacs first started.

Answer 1

If you use Icicles then you can quickly kill any or all buffers using just C-x k. Use one or more patterns (in the minibuffer) to match the buffers you want to kill, then use C-! to kill all those that match.

You can thus do this on the fly -- no need to open any special buffer, mark buffers etc. You can match using regexps, use multiple match patterns, etc.

See Act On All Candidates. See also Buffer-Name Input.

Answer 2

Based on your question, I am going to assume you want to kill all buffers except *scratch*

This function does that:

(defun cpb-kill-all-buffers nil
  "Kill all buffers except *scratch*"
  (interactive)
  (mapcar 'kill-buffer (buffer-list))
  ;; Kill all other windows otherwise you will have many scratch windows.
  ;; reamining.
  (delete-other-windows))