Quick Tip: Notepad++ – Modify / Delete Macros

Posted on January 18, 2006 by Sean

I use Notepad++ (v3.3 currently) for a lot of my development work, this web and I noticed that I couldn’t find any sites that mention how to delete or edit a macro once you create it.

Here is the rather simple method (simple once you find it anyway… it’s not in the “Macro” menu):

From the top menu, prostate select “Settings” => “Shortcut Mapper…”
Scroll down near the very bottom (my macros started at item 60)
Right-click and select either Modify or Delete (double click will act the same as selecting Modify)

Hope that helps someone!

66 thoughts on “Quick Tip: Notepad++ – Modify / Delete Macros”

Dana on September 7, 2006 at 12:43 pm said:

Thanks! This was a lifesaver!

Please — no mailing lists.
Penguin on November 18, 2006 at 2:02 pm said:

Thanks, you saved me hours of research on Sourceforge’s forum…
Jeanne on February 9, 2007 at 8:54 pm said:

Thank you!!
Roger on April 26, 2007 at 8:16 pm said:

Yes…as stated thank you for that bit. There really ought to be a way to edit macros on the macro menu.
Steve Wright on July 10, 2007 at 10:18 am said:

Thanks so much!
Sverrir on August 28, 2007 at 6:38 am said:

Thanks… Now the only thing missing is a way to edit macros and possibly nest them so you can include macros in new ones.
Aaron on September 5, 2007 at 10:19 pm said:

u are so smart!!! thank you very much1
harkpabst_meliantrop on October 2, 2007 at 5:53 am said:

Huh, still the same in 4.3. One more thank you …
Wahoo on October 6, 2007 at 10:21 pm said:

Thank you for sharing!
Danilo on October 22, 2007 at 2:55 pm said:

Thx man… I was looking for this…! \o/
Alan on November 15, 2007 at 12:53 pm said:

Thanks a lot. Still the same in 4.5. The modify is just changing the shortcut. I am wondering if we can edit the macro by changing the code associated with the macro, as many programs do.
VinTW on December 8, 2007 at 3:22 pm said:

This tips is really helps me. Thanks very much!
Anurag on December 21, 2007 at 3:42 pm said:

Seriously, This was the 1st link in google for this problem and it helped me too.
SomeGuy on March 26, 2008 at 9:57 pm said:

Works in v4.6.
pepito on April 1, 2008 at 9:07 am said:

What I really expected to see is how I can edit the code of the macro. Anyway this is also useful

Thanks
Tamar on April 14, 2008 at 1:56 pm said:

Thanks a lot!

I accidently assigned the same shortcut to two macros and had no idea how to undo this. This site, the first hit in Google, saved me from a) recording the macro again and b) a lot of searching on other sites.
Frank on April 21, 2008 at 9:21 am said:

One of the first hits on Google. Great tip.
Wim Molenaar on July 4, 2008 at 3:19 am said:

Looking for month’s for this option…

Thanks!!!
Julian on August 9, 2008 at 9:38 pm said:

Thanks a lot for the tip. :)
K. Woodard on August 24, 2008 at 3:48 pm said:

Big Time Saver! Thanks
Craig Newman on September 20, 2008 at 2:20 pm said:

Thanks Sean for taking the time to document the tip. Your website is great. All the best!
alidob on September 22, 2008 at 4:57 am said:

thanks, good hint!
bcalmac on October 3, 2008 at 12:21 pm said:

great neuron saver!
leonid on October 17, 2008 at 3:20 am said:

Thanks
Kevin on November 6, 2008 at 10:39 pm said:

wow, thanks for posting this. i looked on the sourceforge site and could only find where others asked and NOBODY answered!
Francesco Bongiovanni on December 16, 2008 at 11:48 am said:

in order to go an modify an existing macro (in case you’ve made a mistake)

go to “C:\Documents and Settings\francesco\Application Data\Notepad++\shortcuts.xml”

:D
kaba on December 18, 2008 at 5:07 am said:

thanks!
Paul on December 27, 2008 at 6:28 am said:

Thanks a lot! I wanted to delete Notepad++ because I could not delete one macro. Now I’ll continue to use this editor! :)
Beth on December 30, 2008 at 5:33 pm said:

Thanks a bunch!!
Ashish on January 8, 2009 at 11:46 am said:

Thank you sir. I was looking for this for a long time. I reinstalled npp once because the shortcut became really annoying.
Panagiotis on January 10, 2009 at 2:17 pm said:

thank you
SusanM on January 16, 2009 at 11:33 pm said:

Thanks! Accurate and easy to find.
xav on January 17, 2009 at 8:25 am said:

Thx a lot !
andy on February 4, 2009 at 2:06 pm said:

Francesco Bongiovanni

Thankyou – switched ‘puters and wanted to migrate my macros. This have saved me a lot of time!

Cheers,
BB on March 4, 2009 at 2:37 am said:

This helped a lot. Should be the first link in Google search.
JW on March 9, 2009 at 3:51 pm said:

This totally saved my bacon!! Thanks!
cochise on May 26, 2009 at 3:12 am said:

thx
Marco Ottolini on June 8, 2009 at 8:39 am said:

Thank you: saved me a lot of time
Rafael Kuvasney on June 23, 2009 at 1:57 pm said:

xxxxxxtremely useful! thank you very much!
Carla on July 8, 2009 at 4:10 am said:

Thank you very much!
Sylvia on July 9, 2009 at 10:26 am said:

Hurray! I’ve been trying to work out how to do that – never thought to look in the other menu!
Budgy on July 23, 2009 at 10:31 am said:

you the man, thanks
Joe on September 2, 2009 at 11:12 am said:

I must still be missing something. Is there a way to edit the macro? Not its properties or shortcut, but the steps? I thought there was. This is why I chose Notepad++ over TextPad.
Thanks.
Sean on September 2, 2009 at 11:22 am said:

@Joe as far as I know, there is no way to do that. I think you just have to record another macro. If anyone knows differently, please leave a comment!
grisaman on September 30, 2009 at 12:04 pm said:

I am quoting Francesco, follow the path below and find that xml file, inside you will find all your macros and you can edit them as you wish. Make sure you can see hidden folders and windows hidden folders before attempting to browse for the file. I hope this helps.

“in order to go an modify an existing macro (in case youâ€™ve made a mistake)

go to â€œC:\Documents and Settings\francesco\Application Data\Notepad++\shortcuts.xmlâ€”

:D
d on October 4, 2009 at 9:03 am said:

If you want to edit or delete the actual contents/operations of the macros, see the following:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/362444/how-to-write-macro-for-notepad
Curmudgeon on November 2, 2009 at 3:30 pm said:

You goobers realize this is in the help file, right? Try an F1 from time to time.
Dan on November 12, 2009 at 2:27 am said:

Curmudgeon, you do realise this thread was started in 2007, right? How sure are you the help file has all these back in 2007?
Ludi on November 26, 2009 at 1:31 pm said:

Very usefull hint. Works very fine for me.

Maybe that should be mentioned somewhere at a proper (official) place.

Thank you!
svend on December 29, 2009 at 1:58 pm said:

Thanks for the tip, Sean.

@d and Francesco:

Actually, user-created macros are *not* being saved in shortcuts.xml as that StackOverflow post (and many other websites) state. At least not in my version (5.4.2). Haven’t been able to find where they’re stored yet.

Quite frustrating to be working so hard to figure out how to edit a macro in a tool geared towards programmers. Even M$ World let you edit macros!

SeanColombo.com

My little corner of the internet.

Quick Tip: Notepad++ – Modify / Delete Macros

66 thoughts on “Quick Tip: Notepad++ – Modify / Delete Macros”

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