Cloud or online storage-based services are more popular than ever, because of their adaptability and efficiency, as they also provide the convenience of access. Many cloud storages are available for our use, a few notables are Microsoft OneDrive, Apple iCloud, Dropbox, etc. Google Drive is the most widely used cloud-based storage service, and it offers a variety of capabilities, including the opportunity to collaborate with others. It also allows us to edit our slides, documents, and spreadsheets, it also allows us to access them from several devices. We can save our files on Drive, and it has 15 GBs of free storage. People utilize Drive as a means of backup storage medium, but there is much more potential to it.
As Drive provides us the ability to collaborate with our peers and work on various tasks, it also has the capability to maintain several versions of a specific file, so that any changes made by a collaborator, or any changes made by you are stored separately, in case either one of you intends to retrieve these different or older versions of said file. Hundred different versions of the same file can be stored over the period of 30 days, when either of the limits is met the versions get deleted, but before that, you are able to retrieve separate older versions of files created from Google applications like Spreadsheets, Slides or Docs. Drive also stores separate versions of non-Google files that you have uploaded to your Drive.
This article will focus on how you can access previous versions of files saved to your Drive; in case you require working on it.
Revert to earlier versions of Docs, Sheets, and Slides files
If the file you are trying to access older versions of are created through Google Apps like Docs, Sheets, and Slides, then you may follow this quick and easy access to view the previous versions or even download them.
Step 1: Open Google Drive on your browser and access the desired file.
Step 2: In the top left of your corresponding app (Slides, Sheets, or Docs) click on the ‘Files’ button.
Step 3: In the ‘Files’ menu, locate the ‘Version history’ option.
Step 4: Now click on the ‘See version history’ option.
Step 5: In the left sidebar all previous versions of a file will be displayed, click on either one of them to access them. Then several parts of this file will be named and color-coded, according to the people who made edits to this file.
Step 6: To revert to a version that you like, you can click the ‘Restore this version’ button.
Uploading a new version of a non-Google file to Drive
The second method this article is going to focus on will be regarding all the ‘non- Google files’ and how to access their previous version in case you want to retrieve them. The simple steps down below will help you in recovering various versions of specific files and you can choose which one you want to restore.
Step 1: Open Google Drive on your browser.
Step 2: Right click on a file and a menu will appear.
Step 3: Locate the ‘Manage versions’ option and click on it.
Step 4: A list of the current version and previous versions will appear.
Step 5: You may download a previous version of this file.
Step 6: In order to replace the current version with the previous one, you may click on the ‘UPLOAD NEW VERSION’ button.
Step 7: Navigate through your computer and find the file you just downloaded. You may upload this file and it will be reverted to the previous version.
This Google Drive feature can be a blessing to have. Many files can get corrupted or even accidentally overwritten, the ability to retrieve an older version of the same file can prevent data loss. This also helps us maintain a record of what edits have been made to a file over time.