Undo and delete tasks

Every change and delete in Prior can be undone for a few seconds. How the Undo toast and shortcut work, what a delete does, and what you cannot get back.

Prior does not ask "Are you sure?". It does the action and offers Undo instead, so you keep moving and can still take it back.

#Undo a change

After most actions, a toast appears at the bottom right, or above the tab bar on a phone, with an Undo button. It stays for about six and a half seconds, and the countdown pauses while your pointer or keyboard focus is on it.

• Click Undo, or press Cmd Z or Ctrl Z. The shortcut runs the newest Undo on screen. While you type in a field it keeps undoing your text instead.
• You can undo completing a task, changing a date, a priority or a project, moving it between quadrants, setting a follow-up, any bulk action, and deleting.
• Undoing a completion reopens the task, takes back its XP and removes the next occurrence of a repeating task.
• After a bulk action, Undo puts back only the fields that action changed. Edits you made since, or that a collaborator made, stay.

Up to three toasts show at once. Each Undo takes back its own action.

#Delete a task

Delete from a task's menu with Delete task, with Backspace or Delete on a focused row, with Delete task in the side panel, or with Delete in the selection bar. You see "Task deleted" or "3 tasks deleted" and Undo.

The task disappears from your lists at once, but Prior does not write the delete yet. It waits out the Undo window first, and a delete only happens once the toast is gone. Hovering the toast keeps the delete on hold.

What happens next:

• If you close the window or the tab, or sign out, while a delete is waiting, Prior writes it right away and you can no longer undo it.
• After the window the task is deleted, and the deletion syncs to your other devices.
• Prior has no trash folder. A deleted task cannot be restored from the app, so if you might need the task again, complete it instead. Completed tasks wait in the folded Done row and a click on their circle reopens them.

#The same rule elsewhere

Projects, areas and habits wait for their Undo window too. Deleting a project hides it and its tasks until the window ends. A shared project is left from its share dialog, not deleted. Archiving or deleting a message in the mail inbox works the same way.

#Good to know

• Closing the new task sheet without saving keeps your words as a draft for seven days. Editing a task with unsaved changes asks you to press Esc again before it closes. See Create a task.
• Changes you make while offline can be undone the same way. See Offline use and sync.
• To keep a copy of your work outside Prior, see Export your data.

Updated 5 November 2026