If you have to work on documents quite often and your job requires you to type in lots and lots of text then you must be aware of situations that require you to undo everything and start typing again from the beginning. Well, you might have realized that you were going wrong somewhere and then altered all the text only to find out that you were right in the first place. Well, such situations can quickly become annoying for the Mac users as they’re then involved in another boring task i.e. to press the Undo button hundreds of times until they get back to the point where they were going right. To deal with such situations, you may want to find out how to restore older version of files on Mac.
But fortunately enough, this doesn’t need to be like that anymore as we’re going to share with you a lot easier way to get through all this. Yes, you can simply restore older version of the files in question in order to revert back all the changes that were not actually needed. The restore feature is available with most of the programs that you have on your Mac. Let’s get into the details of how exactly you can be able to use this feature.
Jump To Section:
- Restoring Older Versions Of Files On Mac
- Restoring Older Versions Of Files On Mac While Still Keeping The Original Copy
- How You Can Search For Older Versions Of Documents With Time Machine
Restoring Older Versions Of Files On Mac
Before proceeding, bear it in mind that not all the applications come with such Revert To features. But many of them still do. If you want to find out whether or not the feature is available in a specific program, you can check it in App menu by going to File menu in Menu bar. If the option is available, it means you’ll be able to restore to older versions of the files you may be working on only with few clicks. Here is how to restore older version of files on Mac.
- Select the document and click File menu in app menu towards top left side of the screen
- In the dropdown list, choose the Revert To option
- Choose ‘Browse All Versions’ next
- Now, either click on Arrow that you see in front of the document for going backwards through available versions, or simply use Timeline Ticker towards the right side and take a look at working timeline where you can select the desired version
- After selecting the desired version of the file in question, click the Restore button
It’s as simple as that, your file will now be exchanged automatically with the version that you have just restored on your Mac.
Restoring Older Versions Of Files On Mac While Still Keeping The Original Copy
Sometimes, you are in need of the older version of a certain file but you also do not want to get rid of the version that you are currently using. For instance, you may need the older version for making a few comparisons of the two files. Well, you can very much do that by restoring older version’s copy and then you can work on the two files separately. Here is how to do that.
- Select the document for which you want to restore an older version, and click to open File menu in app menu
- In dropdown list that opens up, select the Revert To option
- Now choose Browse All Versions
- In the next window, either click on Arrow in front of the document for going backwards through older versions of the file in question or simply click Timeline Ticker and browse through the working timeline for selecting desired version of the file saved on a particular time
- Once you have selected the desired version of the file, press and hold Option key
- Now click on Restore a copy
A copy of the older version will be opened with untitled name. It can be saved to Mac as well if you intend to keep original as well as the restored older version of the file.
How You Can Search For Older Versions Of Documents With Time Machine
If you are familiar with Time Machine feature of the Mac, you can use it for searching any older versions that you may be looking for certain files. It’s a handy option as it works even when the applications don’t offer that Revert To option. Here is how you can be able to use this feature on your Mac for finding files’ older versions.
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- Open Finder on your Mac
- Search for the document whose older version you’re looking for and then select it
- In Menu Bar, click Time Machine option
- Now you can choose to click on Arrow appearing next to that document for going backwards and take a look at all available versions one by one, or you can select Timeline ticker option to take a look at all available versions saved at a particular time
- Select the older version that you want to restore and click the Restore button
When a document is restored using Time Machine, it becomes available automatically in the original location where it was actually kept. If the current version is already there in same place, you’ll be asked if you want to keep both files or delete the current version and restore the earlier one. Choosing to keep both will rename older version and add “original” in its title. That’s all; you have successfully restored the older version of the file through Time Machine.
You can try any of these three options depending on what works best for your situation. All of them will serve the same purpose, but a bit differently. In the end, you will have older version of the desired file restored to your Mac.