How can I reload .emacs after changing it?

You can use the command load-file (M-x load-file, then press return twice to accept the default filename, which is the current file being edited).

You can also just move the point to the end of any sexp and press C-xC-e to execute just that sexp. Usually it's not necessary to reload the whole file if you're just changing a line or two.

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Very strange that the very convenient

M-x eval-buffer

is not mentioned here.

It immediately evaluates all code in the buffer, its the quickest method, if your .emacs is idempotent.

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You can usually just re-evaluate the changed region. Mark the region of ~/.emacs that you've changed, and then use M-x eval-region RET. This is often safer than re-evaluating the entire file since it's easy to write a .emacs file that doesn't work quite right after being loaded twice.

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If you've got your .emacs file open in the currently active buffer:

M-x eval-buffer

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M-x load-file
~/.emacs

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solution

M-: (load user-init-file)

notes

you type it in Eval: prompt (including the parentheses)

user-init-file is a variable holding the ~/.emacs value (pointing to the configuration file path) by default

(load) is shorter, older, and non-interactive version of (load-file); it is not an emacs command (to be typed in M-x) but a mere elisp function

conclusion

M-: > M-x

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Others already answered your question as stated, but I find that I usually want to execute the lines that I just wrote. for that, CtrlAltx in the lisp works just fine.

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The following should do it...

M-x load-file

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I suggest that you don't do this, initially. Instead, start a new emacs session and test whatever changes you made to see if they work correctly. The reason to do it this way is to avoid leaving you in a state where you have an inoperable .emacs file, which fails to load or fails to load cleanly. If you do all of your editing in the original session, and all of your testing in a new session, you'll always have something reliable to comment out offending code.

When you are finally happy with your changes, then go ahead and use one of the other answers to re-load. My personal preference is to eval just the section you've added/changed, and to do that just highlight the region of added/changed code and call M-x eval-region. Doing that minimizes the code that's evaluated, minimizing any unintentional side-effects, as luapyad points out.

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Keyboard shortcut:

(defun reload-init-file ()
  (interactive)
  (load-file user-init-file))

(global-set-key (kbd "C-c C-l") 'reload-init-file)    ; Reload .emacs file

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C-x C-e ;; current line
M-x eval-region ;; region
M-x eval-buffer ;; whole buffer
M-x load-file ~/.emacs.d/init.el

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Define it in your init file and call by M-x reload-user-init-file

(defun reload-user-init-file()
  (interactive)
  (load-file user-init-file))

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I'm currently on Ubuntu 15.04; I like to define a key for this. [M-insert] translates to alt-insert on my keyboard. Put this in your .emacs file:

(global-set-key [M-insert] '(lambda() (interactive) (load-file "~/.emacs")))

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Beside commands like M-x eval-buffer or M-x load-file you can restart a fresh emacs from the command line:

emacs -q --load "init.el"

Usage example stackoverflow.com/questions/44959535/company-backends-in-gnu-emacs/

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Although M-x eval-buffer will work you may run into problems with toggles and other similar things. A better approach might be to "mark" or highlight whats new in your .emacs (or even scratch buffer if your just messing around) and then M-x eval-region. Hope this helps.

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Here is a quick and easy way to quick test your config. You can also use C-x C-e at the end of specific lisp to execute certain function individually.

C-x C-e runs the command eval-last-sexp (found in global-map), which is an interactive compiled Lisp function. It is bound to C-x C-e. (eval-last-sexp EVAL-LAST-SEXP-ARG-INTERNAL) Evaluate sexp before point; print value in the echo area. Interactively, with prefix argument, print output into current buffer. Normally, this function truncates long output according to the value of the variables ‘eval-expression-print-length’ and ‘eval-expression-print-level’. With a prefix argument of zero, however, there is no such truncation. Such a prefix argument also causes integers to be printed in several additional formats (octal, hexadecimal, and character). If ‘eval-expression-debug-on-error’ is non-nil, which is the default, this command arranges for all errors to enter the debugger.

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You can set key-binding for emacs like this

;; reload emacs configuration
(defun reload-init-file ()
  (interactive)
  (load-file "~/.emacs"))

(global-set-key (kbd "C-c r") 'reload-init-file) 

Hope this will help!

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If you happen to have a shell opened inside Emacs, you can also do:

. ~/.emacs

May save a few key strokes.

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