Delete a branch in a diagram

There are several ways to remove a branch in a diagram:

1: Using the context menu

right click on the text of the item to open the context menu (or press and hold on it using a touchscreen device), then click on the "delete branch" option:

2: Using the mouse

on a desktop device, hold either the [ctrl] or [alt] keys (on a Mac, use [⌥ option]), and hover over the text of the item. An ⓧ will appear, which you can click to remove the branch:

3: Using the keyboard

press backspace twice in an empty item to remove it (after the first press, a hint shows that pressing it again will delete the item; this only works for items that don't have any branches connected to them):

Remove an item without removing its children

To remove just one item, and keep the other items connected to it, sohe item's children stay where they are, and are connected to the item's parent instead:

• In the context menu hold the [ctrl] or [alt] key: "delete branch" changes to "remove item"
• Hold [⌘ cmd] on a Mac, or [ctrl] + [shift] on Windows, and hover over the item: the button to remove will be an ㊀ instead ofⓧ
• While editing the item, use the keyboard shortcut: [ctrl] + [shift] + [backspace]  – ([⌘ cmd] +[shift] + [backspace] on a Mac).

For items with a shape (such as boxes in a flowchart), this works the other way around: the context menu removes just the item, and holding [ctrl] or [alt] changes it to delete the whole branch.

If you remove something by mistake, you can undo the change. Check out more of our handy keyboard shortcuts, too!