Help In Trouble: Add Your Own “Undo” Button to the Windows File Explorer
That happens not often to me, but it happens.
I have picked a file with my mouse and I wanted to pull it to another location. When I reach the new location, I drop that file, but after doing so it is not there.
It is somewhere else, but where?
I could now start a global search for my file, and spend hours until I find it. Or not.
Or I just use the “undo” button and start fresh. That takes only 5 seconds. Alternatively, the keyboard shortcut for undo is Ctrl+Z. This shortcut works regardless of whether the Undo button is on the screen or not. By doing so, you undo an action, such as moving, renaming, or deleting a file.
But where is the “undo” button?
In Windows 10, you can add the undo button to the File Explorer. To do so, above the Home tab, select the rather small down-pointing arrow to display the Customize Quick Access Toolbar list, as shown in the picture below:
How To Activate The “UNDO” Button
These are the steps:
Step 1: After selecting the small down-pointing arrow, the Customize Quick Access Toolbar list opens. See below:
Step 2: From that drop-down list, select the Undo option.
The Undo button is only now visible in the File Explorer menu. The Undo button is a blue arrow curving to the left, and it appears immediately to the left of the dropdown arrow that you have clicked in Step 1, see below:
What The “UNDO” Button Can Do
It works pretty much like the Undo button in a Word document.
You can undo most — but not all — actions in File Explorer by clicking or tapping this button immediately after the action.
Please note that time is not an issue here: you can do something and then undo it a year later if you don’t do anything in the meantime.
Sometimes, but not always, you can even undo a series of actions by repeating the undo function.
There Is Also A “Redo” Button
In order to add the Redo button, which – as you would expect – undoes the undo, select the Customize Quick Access Toolbar dropdown button again.
Then activate it by ticking it.
That’s it.
Call To Action
Do this now, so that you can see that extra option when you need it.
Open your Windows File Explorer, click on the small down-pointing arrow such that Customize Quick Access Toolbar list opens.
The activate “Undo” and “Redo”.
Check whether you see now the two blue arrow curving to the left and right immediately to the left of the dropdown arrow that you have clicked earlier.
Try it by deleting any file and getting it back by pressing the “Undo” button.
Done. Congrats, you have accomplished something important today.
Martin “Find File” Schweiger