IMAGE: APPLE APRIL 2020 MACWORLD 95I
n a number of Apple Mac apps
(including Preview, Pages, and
Keynote), macOS added the quiet
feature of retaining older versions of
documents you modify. This versioning
feature doesn’t require Time Machine,
even though it looks a lot like that feature
and service. You don’t even have to
enable it—it just works in apps that support
it. You can access past versions via File →
Revert To → Browse All Versions.
These apps store a version every hour
while you’re working on it, or more
frequently if major changes are made.
There’s no hard-and-fast rule about how
far back these versions are stored. They
tend to take up fairly little space, because
Apple relies on storing just the differences
between two files, which, for most editing,
involves very little overhead.How to delete autosaved file
versions in macOS
Many apps automatically retain older versions for a period of time.
BY GLENN FLEISHMAN