How to undo in Notes on your iPhone or iPad

While you can get pretty crafty in Apple’s Notes app for the iPhone and iPad, it’s not necessarily obvious how to undo an action since there isn’t a permanently assigned button. There are a few ways to undo and redo, which we’ll cover below.

How to undo in Notes on your iPhone or iPad

For the record, instructions are largely consistent between the iPhone and iPad — while they technically have different operating systems (iOS and iPadOS), they share the same framework.

Using the hidden Undo button

There actually is an Undo button in Notes — it’s just associated with the Markup tool, which most people don’t use on a daily basis. Within a note, tap on the Markup icon, which looks like a pen tip. You’ll see arrow icons appear, which are the Undo and Redo commands.

Using finger gestures

Another quick shortcut to Undo and Redo options is double-tapping anywhere onscreen with three fingers. You’ll trigger a contextual menu bar, as seen above.

Alternately you can try swiping with three fingers to the left (for Undo) or the right (to Redo), but we recommend against this. It’s too easy to do something else in Notes by accident, such as switching to your note collection.

By shaking your iPhone or iPad

If you’ve got Shake to Undo turned on, you can shake an iPhone or even an iPad to trigger a pop-up menu. You’ll see Undo and Redo Typing buttons.

You may need to enable Shake to Undo first. Go to Settings > Accessibility > Touch and toggle Shake to Undo.

Using your iPad’s keyboard

One of the best reasons to have a keyboard for your iPad, beyond the obvious, is access to Mac-style keyboard shortcuts. Hit Command-Z for Undo, and Shift-Command-Z for Redo.