Manage versions of your files on mac (beginner's guide)

Managing different versions of files on the macOS system is an extremely useful feature that, however, often goes unnoticed by a good part of users. It is a function that uses all the power of Time Machine to recover previous versions of your documents. This versioning is nothing new, but now, with the arrival of Apple's new Apple File System (APFS), the management and / or consultation of document versions rises to a new level. It is a professional level function that could get you out of more trouble so in Professional Review we are going to tell you how to use it, and even how to disable it, even though we would not understand why you would want to do such a thing.

Index of contents

Autosave and Versions, Lion's highlights

A few years ago, the OS X Lion version for Mac generated feelings of love and hate among users. Getting closer to iOS, the OS X revision (later called macOS) was not without its problems. Despite this, one of the most notable features was the introduction of file versions.

This new feature also presented some problems. One of the most prominent was creating duplicates however nowadays it is already possible to navigate through each incremental change of a document and restore it. This way it does not matter if you have overwritten an important document, and even if you have deleted part of the document content or if the Mac has been restarted unexpectedly, as the changes are constantly being saved. Hence, it is such an important feature. As with Time Machine, Apple took something that used to be difficult to manage and made it a default and easy-to-use feature.

Autosave, the key function for managing versions

If an application supports version control, it also supports automatic saving. Every time you pause, the app automatically saves the changes you've made or the content you've added. If you work steadily, the app will save changes by default save every few minutes.

But this is not universal for all applications. For example, Office 2016 uses its own autosave and uses Office 365 / One Drive for version control.

With the advent of the new APFS file system, version control has become a critical part as it now works faster.

Restore to latest open / saved version

This is the simplest way to start using the file version control options, and it's found on the File menu. Once you have opened the file in question, for example a Pages document, and after you have made some changes, simply click on the File option in the menu bar, and scroll down to the "Back to" option. There you will see two options that include the last open version and also the last saved version. In both cases, the date / time of these versions is indicated.

If you choose the last opening, any changes you have made to the document since its last opening will be removed, including any changes you have saved. Conversely, if you choose the last saved option, you will automatically jump to the last version you have saved. Logical, right? If you do this accidentally, don't worry, you can also save your recent changes as a new version.

Browsing all versions

In the event that you are looking for an earlier version in the time of your document, for example, a version from last week, or from a month ago, you have another additional option: File> Return to> Browse all versions. You will see the current version of the file move to the side of your screen as a timeline of changes versions appears on the side.

Are you familiar? I supposed. The reason is because the appearance is almost identical to Time Machine. Scroll down the side to the desired version and hit Restore when you find it. This version will jump to the front, becoming the active window on which you can continue working.

Lock and duplicate files

Two other very useful features in terms of file version management are the features that allow you to lock files, or generate a duplicate. These functions are especially useful when working with document templates.

Locking a file is very easy, as it is enough to enable this option through the title bar. Click on the drop-down menu that you will see next to the document title in the window, where the name and folder containing the file are displayed. There you will find a check box, check it and you will have locked the file.

Now, when you make changes to the document, instead of "Save As", in the File menu you will find the Duplicate option. If you use this option, a copy will be made in the same directory as the current file with the same title to which the word “copy” will be added. You can then use the drop-down menu to move it to a new location.

As we said, the duplication of files is excellent if we work with templates. However, you may want to save the file to a different place automatically, and you may even want to change the file type. To bring up the "Save As" option, simply hold down the Option key while clicking File on the menu bar.

Delete old versions

If you want to delete a specific version of a document, you can also do it in macOS. To do this, follow the path File> Return to> Browse all versions. Find the version you want to delete and click it to make it appear on the right side of your screen.

Next, go to the menu bar and select the File> Back to option, and there you should find a new option "Delete this version". Once you click on that option, you will be asked to confirm the action to delete that version forever. Click Yes and repeat the steps for each version you want to remove.

Disable Versions and Autosave options

If what you were looking for when you got here was the way to disable all these version management and autosave functions, then you should dive into the depths of macOS using Terminal . Therefore, be very careful because you could cause serious problems if you do not do it correctly.

First, find the name of the application for which you want to disable these options by running this command:

Find the app you want to disable and replace "AppName" in the following command with the name of your app, making sure to copy the full name correctly.

Finally, disable autosave with the following command. Again, you must replace "AppName" with the name of the application as you found it through the first command:

From now on, the application will no longer save changes automatically, nor will it store different versions of the same file. If you regret it and want to back off by activating the functions again, simply run these two commands with the name of your application:

With all this, Apple has brought users considered "advanced" functions. Versions and autosave were already available on other operating systems, but were not accessible to all users.