How to undo on Mac: Command-Z and redo

How to undo on Mac

1. Press Command-Z right after the mistake.
2. Press it again to step further back. Most apps remember many steps.

From the menu, choose Edit › Undo. The item usually says what it will undo, such as Undo Typing, so you can check before you click.

Redo what you undid

Press Shift-Command-Z, or choose Edit › Redo. Redo works only until you make a new change: after that, the undone steps are gone.

Undo in Finder: bring back a moved or deleted file

1. Click the Finder window so it is active.
2. Open the Edit menu. The first item says what Undo will do, such as Undo Move of “Report.pdf”.

3. Choose it, or press Command-Z.

A file you moved to the Trash with Command-Delete comes back the same way. If you have done other things in Finder since, open the Trash, Control-click the file and choose Put Back: it returns to the folder it came from.

Undo can’t bring back files after you empty the Trash or choose Delete Immediately. Then only a backup helps: see how to back up your Mac and how to delete files on Mac.

Go back to an earlier version of a document

When Command-Z isn’t enough, many apps that save automatically, like TextEdit, Pages and Preview, keep earlier versions of the document.

1. In the open document, choose File › Revert To › Browse All Versions.
2. Move through the versions with the tick marks on the timeline.
3. Click Restore. To keep both, hold Option and click Restore a Copy.

For a quick step back, the same File › Revert To menu also offers Last Opened and Last Saved.

Reopen a tab you closed

In Safari, press Shift-Command-T to reopen the last tab or window you closed. Chrome and Firefox use the same shortcut.