How do I highlight the special characters (tabs, trailing spaces, end

of line, etc) displayed by the ‘list’ option? You can modify the “NonText” and “SpecialKey” highlight groups to highlight the special characters displayed by the ‘list’ option:

    :highlight NonText guibg=red

    :highlight SpecialKey guibg=green

The “NonText” highlighting group is used for “eol”, “extends” and “precedes” settings in the “listchars” option. The “SpecialKey” highlighting group is used for the “tab” and “trail” settings.