A note's history and undo

Take back what you just did, step by step, or bring back what a note said an hour, a day or a month ago.

Undo and redo

Press ⌘Z, or tap the back arrow in the editing bar, to take back the last thing you did; the forward arrow does it again. Each step back takes back one thing:

Something you inserted — a picture, a file, a table, a separator or a link to a note comes back out, and further undos carry on into what you wrote before it.
Something the editor did for you — # becoming a heading, - a bullet, --- a divider, **x** turning bold: each is one step.
A list renumbering itself, or a callout being restated — one step, however many paragraphs it touched. Undo then keeps going back through what you wrote before.
A command typed with / — one ⌘Z takes back what the command did. If the command ended in a panel, such as a table's size or a link's address, a second ⌘Z takes back the characters you typed to reach it.

Numbered lists and checklists stay whole as you go back and forward.

Each step back or forward brings the note to the cursor, so you see what has just changed rather than the top of the note.

If another device changes the note while you are undoing, the note waits until you finish; words on your screen that are not yet saved are kept, not replaced by what arrived.

Open a note's history

Every note keeps its own earlier versions, and the same history is on all your devices.

Choose Info ▸ History, or File ▸ Revert To ▸ Browse All Versions….

History opens in a window of its own. Resize it by dragging any edge, move it aside to see the note underneath, and close it with ⌘W; it opens where and how you left it the next time. The title bar shows the date of the version you are reading, and Restore is in the toolbar.

Open Info ▸ History. History opens as a sheet: ✕ and History over the list of versions, and the date and Restore over the text.

The list shows each version's date, how long the note was in words, and which device wrote that text — for example MacBook Air, iPhone or iPad. The name is the device's, not a person's. So the history tells you where a change was made, not just when.

Pick a version to see the note as it was then. The preview looks like the note itself — callouts as boxes, code as code blocks, headings as headings — so what you see is what restoring would bring back.

Restore a version

Open the note's history and pick the version you want.
Choose Restore.

The note changes on screen at once. It gets back that version's words, together with the callouts and headings that version had. The text you had before is kept as a version of its own, so if you change your mind, restore that one.

If a comment's passage comes back with the restored text, the comment goes back onto it.

Note: History keeps the words, not the attachments. Restoring brings back the text; a picture deleted since does not come back.

When versions are kept

A version is kept the first time you save in any ten-minute stretch, when you close the note, and just before a change made on another device lands on top of what is here. Nothing is kept when the text has not changed.

Older versions are thinned out over time: everything from the last day, then one an hour for a week, one a day for a month, and one a week after that — and never more than 50 versions or 2 MB for one note.

See Also: Write and format · Your library and sync · Comments · Callouts