Version history
Browse every published version and saved restore point, compare any two, and pull an old version back into the draft.
Version history is the record of what this document said and when. Use it to show an auditor the version that was in force on a given date, to see what changed between two versions, or to pull old wording back into the draft.
Open it at Governance → a document → Version history. Anyone who can read the document can read its history; you do not need Writer or Owner to look.
What ends up in the list
| Entry | Created by | Shown as |
|---|---|---|
| Published version | Approving a review, or an Owner publishing directly | The version label, marked Active or Obsolete |
| Saved version | Someone clicking Save version | The label you typed, or Saved version |
| Uploaded file | Uploading a file to an external document | Uploaded file, with a Download action |
The current published version carries a green dot and Active; earlier ones are marked Obsolete and stay in the list. If a document has never published, the list says so: approving a draft publishes the first version.
Alchex also captures the live draft automatically every few minutes while someone has the document open. Those captures are not listed — they exist so the document can still be read if live editing is briefly unavailable.
Saving a version by hand
Type a label in the box at the top of the panel and choose Save version. This captures exactly what is in the editor right now, including anything a colleague typed a second ago, and adds it as a restore point. The label is optional and is trimmed to 120 characters. You need Writer or Owner on the team; Readers do not see the control. If the document has no content yet, the save is refused.
Saving a version does not publish anything and does not change what readers see.
Retention — this matters
Published versions are kept permanently.
Saved versions and automatic captures are kept for about seven days, then removed as the document is edited. Treat a saved version as a short-term undo point for a working session, not as an archive. If a state of the document needs to survive, publish it.
Comparing two versions
Tick the checkbox on one entry, then on a second. The compare bar appears; choose Compare A ⇄ B to open a structural diff of the two, oldest first. Each row also shows the size of the change as added, removed and modified blocks, so you can see at a glance how big a version step was. Choose Open on any entry to read that version on its own, read-only.
Restoring an old version
Choose Restore this version on any entry other than the active one. Confirm, and the checkpoint's content replaces the content of the current draft. Anyone editing the document at that moment sees the change immediately.
Restoring is not a rewrite of history. Specifically:
- Published versions are untouched. Restore only writes to the draft. Nothing in the app can edit or delete a published version, so the record of what was in force stays intact.
- The history list does not change. The old entries stay exactly where they were, and the restore appears in the activity log as new work.
- Readers see nothing yet. The restored content is a draft like any other. It reaches readers only when it publishes, through review or an Owner's direct publish — see Publishing.
- Restoring overwrites the draft's current content. Anything unsaved in the draft that you wanted to keep should be saved as a version first.
You need Writer or Owner to restore. Two refusals are worth knowing:
- The draft is in review. A submitted draft is frozen so the approver reviews fixed content. Withdraw the review first, then restore.
- The version cannot be represented. A few older or imported versions hold content the live editor cannot hold. Alchex refuses rather than silently mangling it; you can still open and read that version.
Related
- Publishing — how a version becomes the one readers see.
- Submit and approve — the review that freezes the draft.
- Activity and archive — the full event log for a document.