Throughout the entire 40-year history of Notepad, you’ve always had to save your text file before closing, otherwise you’d lose all changes made since the last save. That’s not how Google Docs, Microsoft Loop, and many other modern writing applications work, though, which makes Notepad a bit more frustrating to use for some people. Microsoft is fixing that with a new automatic saving feature, coming to Notepad in Windows 11.
Microsoft is rolling out an update to the Notepad for Windows Insiders in Windows 11’s Canary and Dev channels, which adds automatic saving to the text editor. The company said in a blog post, “With this update, Notepad will start automatically saving your session state allowing you to close Notepad without any interrupting dialogs and then pick up where you left off when you return. Notepad will automatically restore previously open tabs as well as unsaved content and edits across those open tabs.”
Importantly, your changes aren’t automatically saved to the file, so you don’t have to worry about inadvertently overwriting important data. Instead, Notepad retains the text and only writes the changes back to the file if you explicitly save it. That way, your edits shouldn’t be lost forever if your PC crashes or loses power, but the file remains in its previous state until you save the file. If you prefer the old behavior, the feature can be turned off in Notepad’s settings.
At the same time, Microsoft is testing an update to Snipping Tool with a combined capture bar. The new interface has a button to switch between screenshot capture and screen recording, much like the existing Xbox Game Bar in Windows 10 and 11 and the capture interface on macOS (Command+Shift+5). You can activate the panel by pressing the Print Screen key, opening it in screenshot mode with Win+Shift+S, or opening it in screen recorder mode with Win+Shift+R. Microsoft started testing screen recording with Snipping Tool back in February.
There’s no confirmed timeline for when the updated Notepad and Snipping Tool will roll out to all Windows 11 PCs, but it will likely be at least a few more weeks.
Source: Windows Blog