How to undo deleting a task by mistake
Press Ctrl+Z in Task List by Zaweba to bring back a deleted task. Undo also reverses ticks, moves and clears, for up to 50 steps.
Press Ctrl+Z straight away. Task List by Zaweba undoes the delete and the task comes back with everything it had. Undo also covers completing a task, moving one, clearing completed tasks and deleting a whole list, and it reaches back 50 steps, so even a slip from a while ago can usually be put right.
Mistakes in a to-do app are easy to make with one stray click. Getting them back should be just as easy.
Undoing the latest change
Ctrl+Z reverses the most recent change. If you deleted a task and did nothing else, one press brings it back. If you made other changes since, press Ctrl+Z again for each one, working backwards, until the deleted task returns. Undo goes back up to 50 steps.
A ticked task, not a deleted one
If what you lost was ticked rather than deleted, there are two other ways back. Right after the tick, an Undo bar appears; click it. Later on, open the Completed smart view, which lists finished tasks with when they were done, find the task and restore it.
A deleted list
Deleting a list asks first whether to move its open tasks to another list. If you deleted a list by mistake anyway, Ctrl+Z reverses that too, within the same 50 steps.
When undo is not enough
Undo history covers recent work. If a task disappeared long ago, or you need to go back further than 50 steps, there are two safety nets.
The first is the daily copy. Task List copies its database every day into a backups folder beside the main file in your user data folder, keeping the newest 14. The second is any full backup you exported with File, then Export a full backup. Import reads a backup back in. It replaces everything currently in Task List, so it asks first and takes a safety copy before doing anything.
Importing a whole backup to rescue one task is heavy handed, because it also takes away anything added since. Often it is quicker to retype the lost task from memory, or from a search of the backup file, than to roll everything back.
Avoiding the problem
Tick finished tasks rather than deleting them. A ticked task moves to Completed, where it stays until you clear it, remains searchable with Ctrl+F, and can be restored at any time. Delete only things that were never real tasks, such as duplicates or test entries.
Before a big tidy, such as Clear completed or removing a list, export a full backup first. It takes seconds and turns a risky clear out into a safe one.
The same care across the app
Undo is part of a wider approach. Import takes a safety copy before replacing anything, deleting a list asks about its open tasks, and completed work is kept until you decide otherwise. You can tidy boldly, knowing that the app expects mistakes and is ready for them. Between the Undo bar, Ctrl+Z, the Completed view and two weeks of daily copies, losing a task for good takes real effort.
One last tip: if you are not sure whether a task was deleted or simply moved, press Ctrl+F and search for a word from its title. Search looks across every list, including completed tasks, so a task that was dragged into the wrong list by mistake turns up straight away, and you can drag it back where it belongs.
