I've been using Windows 7 Sticky Notes for several years now. Today I accidental deleted one of my sticky notes. If this happened to you, you may be able to recover your note using one of the following methods.
Make sure you've closed the Sticky Notes application before proceeding. You can do this by right clicking on the Sticky Note taskbar button and selecting Close Window.
- Undo -- If you simply deleted the text by accident and the Sticky Note window is STILL open, try pressing ctrl-z one or more times to undo your most recent changes. If you go too far back, press ctrl-y to redo the undos.
- Restore -- Sticky Notes are stored in the following file: C:\Users\<UserName>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Sticky Notes\StickyNotes.snt. You'll need to replace <UserName>with your windows login username and you may need to enable the viewing of hidden files and folders to see the file.
- If you make regular backups, simply rename the current file and restore a recent version of the file from your backups.
- Otherwise, right-click on the file and select "Restore previous versions". If your lucky, Windows will have made a backup of the file for you if you or it created a restore point. These are (often?) created when Windows applies updates.
June 6, 2015 at 7:26 AM
Nice…
June 16, 2019 at 7:33 AM
thanx…it worked
October 10, 2017 at 5:45 PM
THANK YOU! This just saved my life.
December 12, 2017 at 4:23 PM
You are a life saver!
October 25, 2018 at 8:08 AM
Thank you. Its working for me.
November 11, 2018 at 11:22 PM
Thank you so much! Your tip just saved my life- my work of several months!!!
November 25, 2018 at 2:09 PM
You are very welcome Michelle! Glad it helped you out ?
January 2, 2019 at 1:53 PM
Thank you! That really saved me.
February 28, 2019 at 7:18 PM
I have 3 sticky notes on my win 7 desktop, but they stay visible for less than a minute. Consequently can’t save a new one. A new one will disappear along with the existing ones, but doesn’t show up when I click on the task bar icon for sticky notes. Only the original 3 show up on the desktop after clicking on the sticky note icon.
November 6, 2019 at 1:23 PM
If you use a laptop with an external monitor, it is possible that your other sticky notes are beyond the borders of your laptop.
You might be able to access them by:
1) pressing ALT-TAB one or more times to select the sticky note that you cannot reach.
If it still doesn’t appear on the screen, you will need to move it back onto the screen. Press the following sequence of keys:
2) ALT+Spacebar (spacebar while holding the ALT key)
3) The letter “m”
4) Any of the arrow keys
5) Move your mouse until the sticky note appears on the screen.
6) Click the left mouse button to release the sticky note.
Alternatively, once the sticky note is selected as described in step 1 above, press the Windows+left or right arrow keys. The down side to this approach is that the process will also resize your sticky note.
Note that you can use these trick to move any application back onto the main screen. Your computer may have others options depending on the manufacturer.
Hope this helps.
Michael
March 4, 2019 at 6:38 AM
Please help to restore my sticky notes
November 6, 2019 at 1:06 PM
That’s what the instructions are for. If you are having a problem with the instructions, please provide detailed steps on what you tried so far.
March 8, 2019 at 1:05 AM
You are a lifesaver buddy.
April 1, 2019 at 12:29 AM
Please it doesn’t work, I will I recover my stuff, I mistakenly deleted my files on sticky notes
November 6, 2019 at 1:02 PM
Sorry, this post only helps you regain access to existing Sticky Notes. It won’t help you recover deleted sticky notes.
April 24, 2019 at 2:56 AM
Its too Good, got my data back
April 30, 2019 at 9:29 AM
Wow!! Thanks a lot. It is really so helpful.
May 20, 2020 at 5:42 PM
thank you so very much! I was able to recover my work for the past few months. You saved me my life!
May 13, 2021 at 2:08 AM
thanks!! got my notes back 🙂
September 10, 2021 at 8:40 AM
won’t work in mine. Clt+Z won’t work and Right click will show only Paste option. Other options are faded.