Guide
Version history
A note keeps what it used to say. Read an earlier version whole, turn on Show what changed to see what moved, and put one back without losing what is there now.
Before you start
- No special role needed. Anyone who can read a note can read its history and restore from it.
- Open the note, click the three dots at the top beside Share, and choose Version history.
Read an earlier version
Open Version history
The three dots beside Share open a small menu with Version history in it. A panel slides in over the note, listing every version it has kept, newest first.
Each entry says when it was kept and who was writing at the time, and some of them say why: when editing changed hands, or before a restore. It keeps the 200 most recent.
Pick one to read it
A version opens whole and readable, the way the note looked at that moment, rather than as a list of changes. That is usually the question people actually have: not what moved, but what did it say.
Turn on Show what changed
The switch marks the difference between the version you are reading and the state that followed it. What came in afterwards is highlighted, and what went away is struck through.
The line under it says what the comparison is against, because a highlight nobody can place reads as absolute rather than relative. The newest entry is compared with the note as it is now; every other one is compared with the version after it.
Word by word highlighting is exact for paragraphs, headings and list items, which is most of a note. Tables, checklists, pictures and @ mentions are shown as changed rather than picked apart inside, because a wrong highlight inside a table is worse than an honest one beside it.
Restore this version
The button puts that text back into the note. The panel closes and the note reloads onto it.
Nothing is deleted, and that is the point rather than a reassurance. Restoring writes the old text as the newest version of the note, so the version you were on a second ago is still in the list and a restore you did not mean is one more restore away from being undone.
What a restore does, exactly
It is an ordinary edit, made for you. WorkWiser does not roll the note back to that day and throw away everything since: it takes what the note says now and turns it into what the version said, then saves that as the newest version. The history keeps growing and nothing ever leaves it.
Before it writes anything it keeps a version of what the note says right now, marked before a restore. So the way back from a restore is always sitting in the same list you started from.
It puts back the words. The title of the note is left as it is, so a note you renamed keeps the name you gave it.
If somebody else changed the note while the panel was open, the restore stops and says so instead of writing over them. Close the panel, read what they did, and decide again.
When a version is kept
About three minutes after you stop editing. A version is one sitting at the keyboard rather than one keystroke, so a paragraph written over five minutes is one entry and not three hundred.
Whenever the note changes hands, so a version always ends where one person stopped and the next began. See Work on a note together.
And immediately before a restore, which is what makes the state a restore replaced recoverable in its turn.
A note written in one sitting and left alone has no history yet, and the panel says so in as many words rather than showing an empty list. Nothing has gone missing; there has simply been nothing to keep.
Good to know
The history belongs to the note, so it travels with it. Move a note to another client or project and its versions go too, readable by exactly the people who can read the note.
An archived note has no menu at the top, so there is no way into its history while it is put away. Click Restore in the banner first, then open Version history.
Pictures and files are the one thing a restore cannot always bring back. When a picture is taken out of a note, WorkWiser eventually clears the file away, and restoring a version that used it brings back the text but not the picture.
Nobody can delete a version, and nobody can delete a note. See Find, archive and restore.
Ready to see it on your own work?
WorkWiser is in early access. Tell us where to reach you and we will send an invite when it is your turn.