Notepad++ Shortcut – How to Reopen Closed Tab

keyboard shortcutsmacrosnotepadtabs

To reopen a closed tab in Notepad++ you press ALT+F&1. I was wondering if there was a way to make a macro or program to do this so that I can press link it to the shortcut CTRL+SHIFT+T instead, which is a universal reopen closed tab shortcut I'm used to.

If anyone could tell me how to make a simple program that does that, and that I could then link to Notepad++ to create a shortcut with, that would teach me a lot and help.

Thank you for reading

Best Answer

I have successfully tested the following solution: define this AutoHotKey macro:

SendMode Input                ;just to set up preferred method of sending hotkeys
SetTitleMatchMode, RegEx      ;from now on, windows titles are matched by regex

#IfWinActive Notepad\+\+      ;(open block) the following hotkeys work only in N++
+^t::Send !f1                 ;desired hotkey: Ctrl+Shift+T sends Alt+F, 1
^w::Send ^{F4}                ;bonus: Ctrl+W sends Ctrl+F4 (close file convention)
#IfWinActive                  ;(close #IfWinActive block)

do not forget to run AutoHotKey as administrator.

Using the AHK you can achieve many useful things in N++ and all other applications.

Update

The functionality is included by default in Notepad++ v6.4.5 and later. 6.4.5 was released August 9th 2013. Note the current version is 7.5.8 released July 23rd 2018.

If you are using a version of Notepad++ older than v6.4.5, the rest of this answer still applies.

Natively

You can do this natively in Notepad++, but in order to replicate the behaviour of Firefox, you need to disable the document switcher and MRU behaviour.

Disable MRU functionality

Navigate to Settings > Preferences... > MISC..
- Where it says Document Switcher (Ctrl+TAB) uncheck the first check box Enable.
- Hit the Close button.

Create the Ctrl+PGUP/PGDN shortcuts

Navigate to Settings > Shortcut Mapper....
- Make sure you are on the Main menu tab.
- Scroll to the bottom and you should see in entries 192 Switch to previous document and 193 Switch to next document.
- By default these should be mapped to Ctrl+Shift+Tab and Ctrl+Tab respectively.
- Double click anywhere on the 192 line and change it to Ctrl+Page up.
- Double click anywhere on the 193 line and change it to Ctrl+Page down.
- Hit the Close button.

That's it!

Please note that you will no longer have access to the Ctrl+Tab/Shift+Tab MRU behaviour now. If, like me, you cannot live without this read on.

Another (better) option

Notepad++ defaults to using the back and forward buttons on a mouse to switch to the adjacent left and right tabs, so if you are a fan of AutoHotkey, you can use this little script:

#IfWinActive, ahk_class Notepad++
; Switch to the adjacent tab to the left
^PgUp::
    Send, {XButton1}
    Return
; Switch to the adjacent tab to the right
^PgDn::
    Send, {XButton2}
    Return

This won't interfere with other programs and enables to you have your cake and eat it! You can navigate left and right through adjacent the tabs using Ctrl+PgUp and Ctrl+PgDn and you can still switch to your last used tab using the built-in document switcher functionality using Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab - just like Firefox :)

Does Notepad++ have an “unclose” command

Notepad++ now has this shortcut to restore a recently closed tab.
Control+Shift+T will restore the last recently closed file.