How to exit read-only mode

Question

I have a buffer in read-only mode.

Killing the buffer and reopening it does not do the job while restarting emacs does.

How to exit the read-only mode without restarting emacs?

Answer 1

Calling read-only-mode toggles between read-only and edit mode for the current buffer.

You can call this via M-x read-only-mode or with C-x C-q.

Answer 2

To add a bit to @Juancho's answer, which is correct:

The default value of read-only-mode depends on the buffer. In particular, if it is visiting a file, and if the file itself is read-only, then the default value of read-only-mode will be on.

You can toggle such a buffer, as @Juancho said, to turn off read-only-mode. But if you try to save the buffer after changing it you'll be prompted to confirm, like this:

File foo.el is write-protected; try to save anyway? (yes or no)

And if you answer yes you may be presented with an error such as this:

Opening output file: Permission denied, /path/to/foo.el

Answer 3

I like very much to click on the buffer-read-only indicator % in the mode line for that purpose. It is marked with a red ellipse in the following Figure.

It just feels natural to toggle the read only state where it is indicated.

Note that you can also toggle the buffer-modified-p flag on the right side of the buffer-read-only flag. This is sometimes handy when you just want to kill a modified buffer avoiding backup copies.