I have made sure to “run as admin”

For mapped network drives, if you “run as admin”, you cannot access them, because Windows stores credentials for such drives based on the user. It might be the same with OneDrive – since it’s your standard user, not your admin elevation, that has permission/credentials for OneDrive, using “run as admin” could very-well be the culprit. Try without “run as admin”.

Are you in an IT-controlled environment that requires connecting to a proxy to connect to the internet? If so, then you (or someone from IT) will need to launch Notepad++ As Admin, and set ? > Set Updater Proxy to the right value. (127.0.0.1 is your localhost – ie your own computer – and it surprises me that it would be pointing to a proxy on your own machine)

hopefully it will all be good again in a week or two

As of 2026-Apr-7 (per this post), v8.9.3 has been triggered for Auto-Update, so ? > Update Notepad++ should see a new version available now.

When I open the file explorer from Notepad++, I don’t want to have grouped files (day, month, etc.).

When you open the file explorer from Notepad++, you are being directed into a Windows application, the Explorer. And, as such, it follows the Explorer settings for how any individual directory should look. It is exactly identical to you using Windows’ Win+R key and launching explorer "%UserProfile%\Downloads"

As such, you would change the Explorer settings for the Download directory the same way you would from any explorer window (Explorer’s Sort > Group By > (None)) – but this isn’t Notepad++ advice, this is general Windows advice; as such, a Notepad++ forum isn’t the best place for further discovering Windows Explorer features.

since I use the “real” portable version it all works fine

And this is the key point of this entire thread!

Depending on what version of Notepad++ you were running, and what’s happened since you last opened Notepad++:

Depending on the state, and how little you’ve done since you had the problem, and what version of Notepad++ you are running, that backup session might contain the ~100 txt files.

If not (if there’s no session.xml.inCaseOfCorruption.bak , or if the copy there was written after your session got messed up), there is nothing we can do for you, as the backup session isn’t there. (Hopefully, those 100 txt files were all real files, not new 1 … new 100 with no saved changes ever – if they were, you can look in the backup subdirectory, but again, no guarantees the files are there).

This Topic is closed/locked as a duplicate of your original.

If you have more questions about the answers you received, reply in the original discussion, not here; and ask specific questions about the answer you were given, don’t just re-iterate what you’ve already said.

Update: this is also the same question you asked in June 2025. Apparently, you don’t actually read the replies to questions you already asked. If it’s because you don’t realize you’ve gotten replies, I recommend going to your forum settings (click your avatar/icon in the upper-right in the forum, click settings, then change “When a new reply is posted in a topic you are watching” and/or “When someone mentions you” from None or Notification Only to Notification & Email, so that the forum will email you when you get a reply)

Settings > Preferences > Backup > ☑ Enable session snapshot and periodic backup

That setting kinda represents the journey of discovery for me, who, is certainly a novice, and has been reminded regularly of my level of ignorance when it comes to an impressive tool like Notepad++. Obviously, the way manifested itself didn’t make sense to me, never seeing that effect before elsewhere.

That setting has nothing to do with toolbar buttons. If you just brought this up as an example of things that you didn’t understand but are learning the utility of, fine.

If you think that this affected your toolbar buttons in any way, shape, or form, you will need to explain what you think changed, and prove to yourself that it does change it by doing screenshots before and after toggling that option (and paste them here if you think it does prove your point).

since some other text editors do have such a feature.

What text editors do you think have this feature that you want? What setting in that other text editor do you change to get things to go from “normal” to “what you want”? If you give us that, (including “before” and “after” screenshots) we might be able to figure out what feature it is you really want, and be able to better answer you as to whether or not it can be done in Notepad++.

(I mentioned screenshots a couple of times. If you use Alt+PrintScreen or the modern Win11 Snipping Tool equivalent, you can just paste the image directly into your reply here, making it simply a matter of Ctrl+V to embed the image. But screenshots showing what it is you want would be really helpful for us to understand you.)

Basically I always have a lot of files open. But one particular file is on a drive which powers down when not in use. I can only think that this has something to do with it that maybe the drive hasn’t spun up yet when I open notepad++ ?

I have been using notepad++ for years and it is only really started happening “recently”. No other files vanish which are loaded from my main system drive. So I can only think it has something to do with the drive being probably powered down when notepad loads and somehow it just does not open the file at all and removes it from the taps ?

This would be a great convenient enhancement feature.

Natively, there is no such feature (and it’s not likely to happen, IMO).

Using a plugin, it’s doable. For now, it requires using a not-yet-released version of the EditorConfig plugin, but they are supposedly eventually going to release a new version with all the features/fixes from the last 6 years.

EditorConfig plugin should be able to handle the charset attribute. But the version available in Plugins Admin is still 6 years old, and does not include that attribute. They merged the PR that implemented charset in 2023, but have not done a release since v0.4.0.0 in 2019. (In October 2025, they put in an Issue to encourage themselves to do a release, but there’s still apparently a showstopper preventing them from moving forward.)

I just forked their repo, and did a build based on their most recent codebase; I call that “0.4.0.1”, so that there’s something to distinguish it from the official version. For a couple of months from 2026-Mar-30, GitHub should have some artifacts of my v0.4.0.1 build.

(GitHub will remove those artifacts sometime in the next few months. If EditorConfig hasn’t done an official release since then, and the files are gone, feel free to ping me here, and I can trigger a new build to GitHub)

It seems a mixed bag: wanting it as system default, associated with lots of file types, and using the Shell Extension, but not wanting to “install” it. It might help us give you better advice if you explain what parts of the “install” that you are opposed to. Is it just storing the settings in %AppData% that you don’t like? Or is there something else? The installer can install into any directory, not just Program Files; the installer can choose to not use %AppData% (as long as it’s not installed in Program Files); the installer automatically registers the Shell Extension for you.

Thanks for all the patience and instruction. I studied those data transfer tutorials, and I “think” I got it right. A little complicated because in Portableapps, in some cases there are up to three iterations of the same file in separate locations. So far, it looks and behaves like the Portableapps.

Is it just storing the settings in %AppData% that you don’t like?

I know the best way to do things is the install. I like to keep things simple. I have very limited space on my OS partition, so I like to keep things as simple as I can by going portable whenever possible, and locating elsewhere. It also makes things easier if you must do an image restore.

That said, considering what you have advised, I think I will do the install. and avoid storing the settings in %AppData%.

After the installation now that I have the working portable version. can I move it to the install directory, mindful of the fact that there will be files in that directory that must retained? Or is it not that simple?

Thank you many times!

First important thing is don’t do any work on that drive, if the data is still there, it is not protected, the more you use the computer, the more likelihood those clusters of the drive will get overwritten.

I don’t think Windows has any internal programs, other than the Recycle bin, which is no use here, as overwritten files aren’t placed there. There is a free program called Recuva, from Piriform, the same people that do CCleaner. If possible, try and download this on another computer to a USB drive, as I said, the more work you do on the drive, the chance of losing the data.

The other good thing with using another machine, is you quickly play around with recuva, it is very basic program, the results are in table form, so easy to rearrange. You can save any detected files to the USB drive as well. If you get the file back, then just replace the current one. And this is the way to all learn to do backups more regularly, which reminds me.

Refer to this post :

https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/post/105114

BR

guy038

Thanks for your reply. I will give your solution a try as a Macro learning experience. Maybe I’ll find other uses for it.

But, I just came up with a different solution:

It’s working well for me. I can use my journal/log with Windows Notepad, and everything else uses Notepad++.

It seems that when I select all the text (which should exceed that default number), the box stays checked even after I stop selecting.

I’m not quite sure what your meaning is here, but…

…and I presume that when you say “default number”, you mean 1024…

The In selection checkbox isn’t truly dynamic; it isn’t going to change while you are selecting text. It only changes when you invoke search, and here are some examples of that:

I will try with v8.9.3-RC and v8.9.1,

regarding my last question it’s with v8.9.2,

I will have a try with the portable version of v8.9.3-RC,

Again thanks for the help,

Settings->Preferences...->Dark Mode,
Settings->Style Configurator...->Style:, and the
Settings->Style Configurator...->Select theme:

…could be coordinated to make just switching between Dark Mode and Light Mode change them all, accordingly. As it is, I’m glad to have just found out that the Dark and Light language files can automatically change by setting that one switch in the dark mode file @PeterJones mentioned, and that automatically chooses the correct code coloring file for the environment (Dark/Light) chosen.

Is there a plugin that would let me hide/unhide multiple lines of text & remember the hide state for the files?

Regards
BM

Let’s consider the Spanish word comparación and its various forms below, pasted in a new tab :

Note that I have deliberately exaggerated the shapes and modified the case of the possible characters !!

If you do any of the six N++ searches, below, against the six lines in the new tab, you’ll see that ONLY the two first regexes, which refer to standard equivalence clases, can find all the lines.

SEARCH (?=[[=c=]])\X(?=[[=o=]])\X(?=[[=m=]])\X(?=[[=p=]])\X(?=[[=a=]])\X(?=[[=r=]])\X(?=[[=a=]])\X(?=[[=c=]])\X(?=[[=i=]])\X(?=[[=ó=]])\X(?=[[=n=]])\X

SEARCH (?=[[=c=]])\X(?=[[=o=]])\X(?=[[=m=]])\X(?=[[=p=]])\X(?=[[=a=]])\X(?=[[=r=]])\X(?=[[=Å=]])\X(?=[[=c=]])\X(?=[[=i=]])\X(?=[[=õ=]])\X(?=[[=n=]])\X

SEARCH (?=[[=Ｃ=]])\X(?=[[=ö=]])\X(?=[[=m=]])\X(?=[[=ꝕ=]])\X(?=[[=a=]])\X(?=[[=r=]])\X(?=[[=A=]])\X(?=[[=c=]])\X(?=[[=ⓘ=]])\X(?=[[=o=]])\X(?=[[=ñ=]])\X

SEARCH (?=[[=Ȼ=]])\X(?=[[=O=]])\X(?=[[=ℳ=]])\X(?=[[=ₚ=]])\X(?=[[=A=]])\X(?=[[=⒭=]])\X(?=[[=Ɐ=]])\X(?=[[=ℭ=]])\X(?=[[=ᴵ=]])\X(?=[[=Ꝋ=]])\X(?=[[=ᵰ=]])\X

SEARCH (?=[[=Ɔ=]])\X(?=[[=º=]])\X(?=[[=ᶆ=]])\X(?=[[=ⱷ=]])\X(?=[[=Ǟ=]])\X(?=[[=ℝ=]])\X(?=[[=Ⱥ=]])\X(?=[[=ꜿ=]])\X(?=[[=ᵼ=]])\X(?=[[=ᴓ=]])\X(?=[[=ɲ=]])\X

SEARCH (?=[[=ɕ=]])\X(?=[[=Ƣ=]])\X(?=[[=ꟽ=]])\X(?=[[=ⓟ=]])\X(?=[[=ǻ=]])\X(?=[[=ꝝ=]])\X(?=[[=Ɑ=]])\X(?=[[=Ɔ=]])\X(?=[[=ⅈ=]])\X(?=[[=ᴗ=]])\X(?=[[=N=]])\X

In constrast to the last release of the Columns++ plugin, independant of Scintilla and doing true UTF-32 searches, which is able to match the six lines of our example, whatever the regex used among the six regexes above !

This example clearly demonstrates that it’s possible to perform a search without considering case and/or accentuated characters with the v1.3.1 release of Columns++ plugin ;-))

Best Regards,

guy038

Welcome to the community.

Yes, there is a good chance you may still be able to recover your unsaved work. Notepad++ has a built-in backup and session snapshot feature that often restores files after a crash.

First, try reopening Notepad++. If the session snapshot feature was enabled, the file may reopen automatically with the content you were working on before the crash.

You can also check the backup folder manually. Go to:
C:\Users\YourUsername\AppData\Roaming\Notepad++\backup
Sometimes Notepad++ stores temporary backup files there, which may contain the unsaved content.

To reduce the risk of losing data in the future, it’s a good idea to enable a few settings:

With these options enabled, Notepad++ will automatically save temporary snapshots of your work and restore them if the program closes unexpectedly.

Hopefully your file is still in the backup folder. Let us know if you need help locating it.

Regards.

Using the published v8.9.2, I could replicate the problem:

But, when I try the same sequence with the bugfix version from PR#17522, it works as expected (openfold doesn’t go missing at all).

That PR will be part of v8.9.3 Release Candidate, expected Mar 14. So it looks to me like the bug has already been fixed.

If the line endings in the file aren’t consistent, it could mismatch.

Huh. Right you are. Ironically, that possibility had actually occurred to me, and I even thought I’d checked for it adequately by enabling View > Show Symbol > Show EOL, but apparently I failed to pick the single LF out of all the CRLF. Thanks.

it’s at the mercy of the OS as to whether the OS will propagate such settings to the user, or completely bypass them

It worked reasonably for me. I ran my installed Notepad++ v8.9.1 As Administrator, then went to the File Association setting, picked customize, typed .pcj (which is a file extension that didn’t have any associated app or filetype), then clicked -> to move it to the Registered extensions column. If I then exit Notepad++ (to get out of Admin mode), and double-click on blah.pcj in Windows Explorer, it opened it in Notepad++. (And looking at the registry, I can confirm it added HKCR\.pcj to point to Notepad++_file, and HKCR\Notepad++_file sets the shell\open\command as expected. (But maybe you didn’t think it “worked” at this point, because it doesn’t necessarily change the text of the “file type” column in Explorer. Even if it doesn’t, the double-click did what I expected.)

When I tried with the preferences dialog misc > .nfo, it edited the existing HJCR\.nfo to point to Notepad++_file (with a Notepad++_backup entry pointing to the original MSInfoFile. When i double-click on an NFO file, Windows actually pops up a Select an App to open this .nfo file, which includes the “Notepad++ (New)” entry (because Windows has been trained to not fully allow applications to hijack extensions, because users hate it when an app does that without their permission) – and from there, you can choose whether you really want to.

But by doing it through the Windows OS Open With interface to begin with, you make sure Windows knows it’s you who wants the change, not the app, and so lets you do it more easily there.

IOW: it works for me on Windows 11 as Notepad++ tries it, with the caveats that Windows 11 is trying to protect me from nefarious apps, so might require a confirmation; and when I do things the way Windows OS wants, it works as expected rather than having to do the extra steps.