MacMost Q&A Forum • View All Forum QuestionsAsk a Question

Auto-Save/Versioning In Mountain Lion

Hi Gary. Firstly, I’ve been following you on MacMost for a few years, and must say a BIIIIG “Thank You” for your sharing. I truly enjoy all the information on your videos, even though I’ve been a ‘silent fan’ of yours for so long.
Secondly, I’ve just updated from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion a week or so ago, and I have a question on Auto Save/Versioning, and hope to get an answer from you.
In iWork, since the Auto Save/Versioning is done automatiCally, I’m curious where the changes to the file are saved to, eg are they saved as different files, or part of the same file (as in something akin to ‘annotation’). And when I have finalised the version/file, what happens to the changes? Can I then ‘remove’ the changes, as in removing the associated files, as I do not wish to have the changes consuming too much disk space, especially with Keynote or large photos?
Thanks in advance for your response.
Thim Fook, Law
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
P/S: Is there any way to bring back the “swipe left/right” on Magic Mouse in Safari?
—–
Thim Fook, Law

Comments: 7 Responses to “Auto-Save/Versioning In Mountain Lion”

    12 years ago

    Versions of files are saved in the folder .DocumentRevisions-V100, at the root level of your drive. They are invisible (and you shouldn't attempt to mess with it as it might screw things up). And only delta changes are saved -- which means that tiny files are saved only with the changes, not the whole document. So they take up very little space. In almost all cases, not enough space to spend a second to worry about.
    But you can delete old versions if you want. You can click on the reveal triangle to the right of the name in the title bar. Then choose Browse All Versions. Then go to an old version and click it to enlarge it, like you want to look at something in that version of the document. Then click the reveal triangle to the right of the name there and you get a Delete This Version option.
    One way you can delete all old versions is to use Save As. Hold down the Option key and choose File, then Save As. Save it as a new document. Then use the Finder to delete the old one. The new document, in my tests, has no version history.
    So if you are done editing a big Keynote project that has lots of massive changes, you may want to consider this. Though I wonder if old versions will simply disappear when enough time has passed without the document being edited, and hard drive space gets tight (otherwise, why delete them at all?)

      Thim Fook, Law
      12 years ago

      Thanks a million, Gary, for such a quick reply. Btw, you missed out answering the other question in "P/S", ie "swipe left/rightā€¯ on Magic Mouse in Safari?"

      Thanks again in advance.

        12 years ago

        Sorry. Did you check in your System Preferences, Mouse? That's where you should be able to set that up. I don't use a Magic Mouse so I can't see that pane.

          Thim Fook, Law
          12 years ago

          Yes I have, Gary. I think with ML, this feature doesn't work anymore as in SL. It's OK, since you don't use the Magic Mouse.

          Thanks again.

    Andy Suhaka
    12 years ago

    This begs the question, I have over 100 docs that are running compilations of email streams. I don't want any of their old versions, just the one ongoing doc (a few are 1,000 pages long, having existed for 10 years). Any older version is irrelevant. Can I doable versioning? Things like this keep me from leaving 10.6.8.

      12 years ago

      The versions will take up no noticeable extra space. You have nothing to worry about. Only deltas are saved -- changes to the file. So say you have 1000 lines of text in a document. And then you replace one line with a new one. Only the change gets saved. The other 999 lines aren't saved in the versions. So unless you are putting 1000 emails in a file, saving a version, then replacing all 1000 emails with 1000 completely different emails, it won't save a whole other copy of the file -- just the changes.
      The advantages to versions far (far far) outweigh any issues dealing with a little extra space being taken up on your hard drive.

    Mr Anthony Cotton
    12 years ago

    Well my question has already been answered you can update from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion. I don`t use a Magic Mouse either.

Comments Closed.