Have you ever placed your cursor in the middle of a word, started typing, and noticed that the characters to the right of the cursor are replaced by the new ones you type, instead of shifting to the right? This happens because you’re in Overtype Mode, also known as Overwrite Mode. Originally, this mode was designed for older text editors where maintaining fixed text lengths and precision was necessary. However, today, this mode is more of a hassle, often confusing users by replacing characters instead of simply inserting them.
Luckily, you can easily disable Overtype Mode in Windows. Once disabled, you’ll be back to the default Insert Mode, which allows you to type normally without overwriting text. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to turn off this feature on both Windows 11 and Windows 10. Let’s get started.
Disable Overtype Mode on Windows 11 & 10
To disable Overtype Mode and switch back to Insert Mode, make sure you are in your text editor of choice and simply press the “Insert” key on your keyboard. The Insert key is usually located near the Backspace key, often labeled as “Ins“.
Note: On some keyboards, you might have to press and hold the “Fn” and then press the “Insert” key. If you don’t have the “Insert” or “Ins” key on your keyboard, use the On-screen Keyboard. You can open it by searching for “On-screen keyboard” in the Start menu.
As soon as you do that, Windows toggles OFF Overtype Mode and automatically enables Insert Mode.
That’s it! From now on, you can type normally. Whenever you place your cursor in the middle of a word and start typing, Windows will insert the new characters while shifting the existing ones to the right, rather than replacing them.
