Stupid Geek Tricks: Undo an Accidental Move or Delete With a Keyboard Shortcut

Have you ever accidentally deleted the wrong file, or duplicated files while trying to select them with the mouse? Those types of mistakes can be extremely frustrating, but there’s a really, really simple way to reverse them.

All you have to do is use the Ctrl+Z keyboard shortcut, or use Edit \ Undo on the menu.

This is especially handy when you are trying to select a bunch of files, and accidentally move the mouse and copy them into the same folder instead:

Once you do that, just immediately use the Ctrl+Z shortcut and the files will be removed, although you will get the regular delete confirmation dialog:

This can be confusing, but since the accidentally copied file is now going to be removed permanently, it makes sense that you’ll have to accept the deletion.

Also note that this works in any version of Windows.

The Geek is the founder of How-To Geek and a geek enthusiast. This article was written on 08/20/08 and tagged with: The Geek Blog, Vista Tips & Tweaks, Windows Vista

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Comments (7)

1. August 21, 2008 7:26 am
   justme

   this doesn’t work with [shift]+[del]

2. August 21, 2008 7:28 am
   The Geek

   That’s a very good point, it doesn’t work for that.

3. August 21, 2008 9:13 am
   Phil

   You are so cool. I’m a older guy with a moderate amount of compuker knowledge, but learn new stuff everyday from your site. I might even pay a little for your stuff… but then again, no I probably won’t. Don’t get any ideas now…U B Da’ Dudes or dudettes! Phil

4. August 21, 2008 9:18 am
   Pandemic_1444

   I was forced to learn that long ago. I’m so impatient I often ended up moving the wrong file, and the worst renaming/moving multiple files because I’d forgotten to deselect the last one.

5. September 8, 2008 8:51 am
   socmoe

   hey it works! thanks!

6. January 3, 2009 11:34 am
   Rudy Roesel

   What if you stupidly moved 1500 files and then went on to do something else. Is there anyway you can return them to their original folder?

7. May 12, 2009 3:32 pm
   Julius Moody

   I removed the .pst folders form outlook in office xp. .pst emails are still on compter so how to get them back on my outlook folders list?

   thanks
   Julius Moody