OneNote: Recover Accidentally Deleted Pages

Delete a page in OneNote by mistake? That's alright. OneNote 2010 has a new feature called the 'Notebook Recycle Bin' that allows you to retrieve pages that you'd previously discarded.

Go to the 'Share' tab on the ribbon, and choose 'Notebook Recycle Bin' in the 'History' group. Pages that you have deleted within the past 60 days will appear in this area, and you are free to restore them by right-clicking any page and choosing 'Move or Copy...'. Choose where you would like to place the page, click the 'Move' button, and there you go! It's as though you never deleted it.

What a relief, eh?

24 comments:

  1. Life saver! Thankyou.

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  2. I wish they hadn't removed the feature in 2007. I'm now in a bind :(

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  3. In 2007 have you triend File --> Open Backup? If your deleted files are there, just right click and select Open as Notebook. :)

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  4. Here's hoping that you can follow this last poster's advice and that you can check through your backups to find it! It's always a good idea to keep backups. :)

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  5. This is the best feature ever!
    Thank-you so much, finding this prevented a nervous breakdown!

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  6. Unfortunately for me, I was working on an exam study guide in OneNote 2007. I did several hours work on it yesterday, and about 5 more hours today. I accidentally deleted it just by hitting the backspace. I went to file; open backup. Everything I did yesterday is ther, but I have lost the 5 hours of work I did today. Is there any way to get that back?

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  7. Thank you! Could'nt find any help in onenote help info...

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  8. Thank you so much! I owe you one big hug.

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  9. Saved my bacon!

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  10. OMG, THANK YOU!

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  11. unfortunately this didnt work for me, the button for "Notebook Recycle Bin" is greyed out on my copy

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    Replies
    1. Sounds like your notebook might be in an older format. If it is, you'll notice it says '[Compatibility Mode]' next to the notebook name when you try to open it. The recycle bin only works for notebooks in the 'OneNote 2010-2013 notebook format', so maybe try converting it to the new format? There's an article here that explains how to do this:

      http://office.microsoft.com/en-ca/support/convert-a-notebook-to-a-different-format-HA103991016.aspx

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  12. Thank you , resolved my problem

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  13. Life saver! Thankyou.

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  14. Please help Stacy. I started using One Note in fear or losing my notes in another app that wasn't compatible with all my devices. Whatever happened my notes are all gone. If I deleted them, they don't seem to be in the recycle bin. But I can't locate the Share tab or History group. Is this for the online version or the app?

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    Replies
    1. Oh no! Sorry to hear you've lost everything. Hopefully you can get it back. I wrote this blog post in reference to the app version. Are you using the online interface? Maybe you'll find a similar feature if you poke through the menus a bit.

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  15. Thank you, just saved a few hours or work I thought I had lost!

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  16. AWESOME!! Glad I found this!

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  17. Lots of good tips.....but if you Cut an dont paste it in another Place before you copy some text....the hole page is gone and does not appear in the recycle bin for OneNote2013...and when Your online this page is gone on all Your synced Devices...
    I have been a great fan of OneNote but this will stop me from expand my usage and recomndation to others....unbelivable that it is possible to make such Programming flaws in 2013..

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  18. Stacy, is there any way to see all the deleted pages at once... it looks like you have to go into each and every notebook to check for them. I have employees and we use the network drive to sync all the laptops at the end of the day... and i'd hate to think that one of my employees accidently deleted a page... Any thoughts would be helpful. OneNote 2013

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  19. My backup files are from THREEE days ago. I swear there are times I just can't believe how stupid people from microsoft can be

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  20. I accidentally deleted a page on the app on my phone is there anyway to retrieve the page back. Had important information on there.

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