Vanishing document versions

Q

In Pages, I often return to previous versions through Revert To. Why do these sometimes vanish?

AThe macOS version system associates saved versions with a specific document. When you create a copy on another volume, or by duplicating or Saving As, all previous versions are lost, but remain associated with the original.

To add to the confusion, when you Browse All Versions, macOS adds in those available in Time Machine backups. Worse, although Time Machine keeps old versions, documents restored from backup don’t come with their versions, unless you restore a whole volume. iCloud now preserves versions when possible, but isn’t reliable and may strip them when documents are copied or moved.

If you value being able to access older versions of documents, look for tools which preserve them in the Mac App Store, such as VersionsManager. Alternatively, check out my free DeepTools and Revisionist downloads from bit.ly/mac352revdept.

The macOS version browser is modelled after Time Machine, and should include old copies of that document saved in your backups. Third-party tools like Revisionist can save previous versions as separate files, and archive them all if you want to preserve them.