Overwriting The Wrong File
Does this scenario sound familiar to you? You have finished updating a document, spreadsheet etc, saved it and closed it. Your task is finished, you’re feeling good about the work you did, and then the awful realisation sets in. You were supposed to make a copy of the file before you changed it and you forgot! The old version has been overwritten and because you closed the file, you cannot undo the changes quickly and easily. What to do?
OneDrive To The Rescue
If the file you were working on was stored on OneDrive (either the personal or business version), then help is at hand. Working automatically behind the scenes, OneDrive keeps a version history of changes made to any file in your OneDrive folders. This version history is only kept for the last 30 days but it does give you the ability to restore an old version if need be.
To see the version history for a file in OneDrive, follow the instructions below for either OneDrive on a Windows 10 desktop or for OneDrive in a browser.
OneDrive On Windows Desktop
Find the file that you want to check in one of your OneDrive folders and right mouse click the file. When you do this a drop-down menu will appear. From the drop-down menu, click on the line that reads “Version history”.
A window will open showing you a list of the versions that have been saved for the file.
Hover your mouse over the version that you are interested in and a 3 dot icon will appear.
Click on this icon and a drop-down list of actions will appear.
The “Restore” action will take the highlighted version and make it the latest version of the file, ready for you to use.
The “Download” action will download this version of the file to the “Downloads” folder on your computer.
The “Delete” action will remove the version from the list and send it to OneDrive’s recycle bin.
OneDrive In A Browser
Find the file that you want to check in one of your OneDrive folders. Hover your mouse over the file and a 3 dot icon will appear next to the filename.
Click on the 3 dot icon and a drop-down menu of available actions will appear.
From this menu, click on the line that reads “Version history”.
A side pane will open on the right-hand side of the browser window showing you a version history list for the file.
Hover your mouse over the version that you are interested in and a 3 dot icon will appear.
Click on this icon and a drop-down list of actions will appear.
The “Restore” action will take the highlighted version and make it the latest version of the file, ready for you to use.
The “Open File” action will open the highlighted version of the file for you.
The “Delete Version” action will remove the version from the list and send it to OneDrive’s recycle bin.
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