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Undo and redo

Made a change you didn't mean to? Take it back. Nabu gives you a normal undo for your own typing, plus a special one-click way to undo a change Nisaba made to a scene.

Mistakes are part of writing. So is changing your mind. Whatever happened, you can step backward — and forward again if you change your mind a second time. This page covers the two kinds of "take it back" in Nabu: the everyday undo for your own edits, and the Undo button that appears after Nisaba writes a scene for you.

Undoing your own typing

While you're writing in the editor, undo and redo work exactly like they do everywhere else.

  1. To take back your last change, press Cmd+Z (Mac) or Ctrl+Z (Windows).
  2. Keep pressing to step back through more changes, one at a time.
  3. To put a change back, press Cmd+Shift+Z (Mac) or Ctrl+Shift+Z (Windows).

You can also use the Undo and Redo buttons at the left of the editor's top toolbar. The buttons step back and forth through the changes you've made in this editing session — they grey out when this session has nothing left to undo or redo. The keys reach further: keep pressing Cmd+Z and, once this session's changes are used up, Nabu keeps stepping back through the scene's earlier saved changes (see the next section). The buttons cover the session; the keys cover the session and what came before it.

This is your moment-to-moment safety net for typing, deleting, reformatting a line, and the small edits you make while writing.

Tip: Undo steps back one change at a time, not one keystroke. Reformatting a line or accepting an edit each count as a single step.

How far back the keys reach

Pressing Cmd+Z steps back in two stages:

  1. This session's typing first. Right after you open a scene, undo walks back through the changes you've made since you opened the editor — stepping back through small groups of recent edits (a burst of typing, a deletion, a reformat), not one letter at a time. The Undo button in the toolbar covers exactly this stage, and greys out once it's used up.
  2. Then the scene's saved history. When there's nothing left from this session, Cmd+Z keeps going — stepping back through the scene's earlier saved changes, including edits from previous sittings and changes Nisaba made. These steps are kept with your project, not just in your browser, so they survive a reload and are still there the next day. (The toolbar buttons don't reach this far — use the keys.)

Your writing is always safe either way: Nabu saves continuously as you type. Undo is about stepping back through changes — it's never the thing keeping your work.

When you want to jump to a whole earlier state of the project — not step change-by-change — that's what version history is for. See Save points and version history.

Note: The toolbar buttons cover the last few things you did this session; Cmd+Z reaches past this session into the scene's saved changes; version history travels back to any saved moment, even days later. They work together.

Undoing a change Nisaba made

When you pick a draft from a set — an A/B choice, a Workshop pass, or a synthesized version — the words you chose land in your scene right away, and a brief message appears: Nisaba's draft applied. Undo? with an Undo button. (If the draft you picked happens to match what was already in the scene word-for-word, the message appears without an Undo button — there's nothing to undo.)

  • Click Undo and the scene snaps back to exactly how it was before the draft you picked.
  • Do nothing and the new draft simply stays — that's the normal case when you're happy with it.

This one-click message is a quick prompt: it fades after a few seconds.

When Nisaba writes or rewrites a scene directly — a plain write, or an edit it makes on its own — the new words also land right away, but there's no one-click prompt. To take that change back, put your cursor in the scene and press Cmd+Z.

The keys reach every AI change to a scene's words, prompt or not. Once this session's typing is undone, Cmd+Z steps back through the scene's saved changes, and Nisaba's write is one of them — whether it came from a rewrite, a workshop pass, an A/B draft you picked, or an edit Nisaba made directly. Because those steps live with your project, this works even after a reload or the next day, and it restores just that one scene, leaving the rest of your script untouched. (One boundary: creating a brand-new scene isn't a Cmd+Z step — undo walks a scene's content history, and a new scene has none before it exists. To remove a scene you didn't want, delete it.)

Tip: The one-click Undo prompt (after picking a draft) is fleeting, but the ability to undo an AI rewrite is not. The undo step is stored with your project, so Cmd+Z can reach any AI change to an existing scene long after — or without — a prompt.

Why you can trust it

Undoing an AI write isn't a guess. Before Nisaba's draft is applied, Nabu records exactly what the scene said. Undo — whether from the one-click prompt or Cmd+Z later — restores that exact saved snapshot, so you always get your original scene back, word for word.

A few careful touches make it safe:

  • It only affects the one scene. Undoing an AI write to a scene never disturbs your other scenes.
  • It keeps any edits you made to the scene's details. If you adjusted the scene's heading or notes after accepting the draft, those are preserved.
  • It won't overwrite newer work by surprise. If the scene has moved on since the AI write — for example, you or a collaborator edited it in the meantime — Nabu won't quietly clobber that newer version. The one-click undo simply won't apply, so nothing good gets lost, and you can still reach the earlier state through version history. This is rare.

In the unusual case where the one-click undo can't be offered, you can always reach an earlier state through Save points and version history — every project keeps a full, browsable history you can restore from.

What each control does

Control What it does
Cmd+Z / Ctrl+Z Undoes your last change — this session's typing first, then the scene's saved changes (including AI writes), even after a reload.
Cmd+Shift+Z / Ctrl+Shift+Z Redoes a change you just undid.
Undo / Redo buttons (editor toolbar) Undo/redo this editing session's changes only. They grey out when the session has nothing left; the keys reach further back.
Undo button (the Nisaba's draft applied message) Restores a scene to how it was before Nisaba's last change to it. A brief prompt — after it fades, use Cmd+Z.

Good to know

  • Your writing is always saved. Undo is about stepping back through changes — it's never the thing keeping your work safe. Nabu saves continuously on its own. See Saving and autosave.
  • The toolbar buttons are session-based; the keys aren't. The Undo/Redo buttons cover this editing session. Cmd+Z goes further — past this session into the scene's saved changes, which survive a reload.
  • Undoing an AI write survives a refresh. The one-click prompt is brief, but the undo step itself is stored with your project — so Cmd+Z can still take back an AI write after you leave and come back.
  • For bigger journeys back in time, use version history. Undo handles the last step or two; version history lets you compare, rename, pin, and restore whole earlier states of your project.