Recover former state of Matlab Editor

I had quite a few files open in the Matlab Editor, but then inadvertently closed the editor window. Is there any way to re-open the editor in a way that recovers its state from before I closed it, i.e., so that the files I had open are automatically open in the editor again, without me having to open them manually, one by one. It seems like the editor does have some memory of its state in some situations, because for example when I close and restart Matlab, the editor does come up again in its former state.

Answer 1

[Mario Malic]

Hi Matt,

Actually, Yair Altman has already mentioned this https://undocumentedmatlab.com/articles/recovering-previous-editor-state

It looks like the info about the editor data, at least on Windows, is kept in file MATLABDesktop.xml

winopen(prefdir)

On the bottom of the file you can find the files that will be opened the next time you start the MATLAB. When you close the file in Editor, the xml file automatically updates and then this .m file won't be opened in Editor the next time.

There's also file MATLABDesktop.xml.prev, which probably stores the same file but from the previous version. Which might be what you're looking for. If you opened/closed MATLAB more than twice with different files open in Editor, then data about previous files is probably lost.

[Matt J]

Thanks, Mario.

Neither of the prefdir/MATLABDesktop.xml files seem to remember anything once the editor window is closed but prefdr/MATLAB_Editor_State.xml does remember!

It appears to be a log of the last several dozen opened files. It doesn't tell you which files co-existed in the Editor at the same time, but it as at least possible to parse MATLAB_Editor_State.xml to re-open the last 5 (or however many) files that were visited.

[Ernesto Soares]

THANK YOU Matt J!!!!! I nearly fainted when I accidentally closed the editor.

[Sanders]

I would like to reiterate what Mario said in his last line and what was laid out in the article by Yair Altman linked above.

If you accidentally close the editor,

1. Go directly and make a copy of MATLABDesktop.xml.prev and MATLABDesktop.xml in case you mess up the process
2. Do not interact with the editor in any way, shape, or form until you have closed matlab. Take this time to save any simulink and workspace work you care about
3. Now go rename MATLABDesktop.xml.prev to MATLABDesktop.xml (you already made a backup of them both, right?)
4. Now re-open Matlab and the rest of your work

I renamed MATLABDesktop.xml.prev with Matlab still open and then tried opening the editor which then wiped the contents of MATLABDesktop.xml so now it was also a blank slate.