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TMO Quick Tip - Finder: The Joy of Undo

by , 7:30 AM EDT, March 12th, 2008

Anyone can make a mistake, and if that mistake happens to be in the Finder, there's a good chance you can undo it. That goes for moving files and folders, renaming items, and even moving items to the Trash.

Just hop on over to the Finder's Edit menu and select the Undo option or use the Command-Z keyboard short cut. This will revert the most recent Finder action you performed on an item back to its original state, which is really handy if you accidentally move a file or folder and don't know where it ended up.

For as great as the Finder's Undo option is, it does have a couple of limitations: It can undo only your last Finder action, and it can't undo emptying the Trash so you can recover accidentally deleted files.

Jeff Gamet is TMO's Morning Editor and Reviews Editor. He lectures, teaches and speaks on Mac OS X and design-related topics, and is the author of The Designer's Guide to Mac OS X from Peachpit Press.

if you have tips or tricks to share, or Mac-related questions you want answered.

Observer Comments

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Close Name:Small White Car Posts: 1960 Joined: 02 Jul 2004
Wed Mar 12, 2008 10:05 am Subject: More Limitations

Here are two other things it can't do:

* Undo a change to the icons in the Dock.
* Restore a removed drive from the the Finder's side-bar.

I'd say that 90% of the time I see someone do one of these things, the first thing they say is "oops."

Something so easy to do by accident really should have an undo feature.


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Close Name:Guest
Wed Mar 12, 2008 10:41 am Subject: undo

it's called Time machine!


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