DEVONthink 4 supports automatic versioning, quietly saving snapshots of your documents as you work. But sometimes you want more control over which versions are preserved. That’s where named versions come in.
New in DEVONthink 4.2 Cassini, you can now manually save the current state of a document as a version and give it a distinct name. Unlike automatic versions that may be purged over time, named versions are permanent. They stick around until you explicitly remove them.
Think of named versions as bookmarks in your document’s evolution. Here are some practical scenarios:
- Document stages: Mark versions like “First Draft,” “After Editor Review,” or “Final for Client”
- Safe experimentation: Save a known good version before trying major revisions
- Milestone tracking: Preserve states like before presentation or before restructuring
- Collaborative checkpoints: Create a fallback before incorporating feedback
To save a named version, open the Versions inspector for the document with Tools > Inspectors > Versions or ⌃V, then click the + button. You’ll be prompted to give it a meaningful name that helps you identify it later. Click OK. You can access all saved versions, manual or automatic, in the Versions inspector.
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One more suggestion: it’d be great to be able to save an existing automatic version as a named version.
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And another suggestion! Right now when the Versions inspector is open, you can click on a version, which highlights the name, and shows it in the Preview window . To switch back to the current version, you have to command click on highlighted version name, which is not obvious, and can lead to a panic of “did I just replace my document by accident?”.
I’d suggest adding something to make it more clear how you switch back:
- click (instead of command-click) on the hightlighted name
- or have “current version” always present at the top of the version list, which you can click on
Clicking below the oldest version is another possibility.
This immediately made sense to me. As you have to explictly restore a version, you’re just browsing versions, not actually changing anything.
And even restoring an old version just swaps the old version and the current version, therefore nothing gets lost.
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Although once you have a lot of automatic versions, there is no “below” to click on. And even though I know it’s just a preview, there’s always a moment of “oh no how to I get back”.
Here’s an example that almost made me jump out of my skin. I opened the Versions inspector for a document, clicked on an old version, then closed the inspector. Next, I reopened the Versions inspector and… it is empty. For a moment I thought it had swaped versions and trashed the old ones. When I reloaded the page (in the sidebar, selecting another document, then selecting the first one again), the correct version re-appeared (with all the versions intact).
But I feel it needs to be clearer about what is being displayed when you click on a version, and how you go back to the original. Another possibility: a banner at the top of the preview window that says “Version” with the name or date, and buttons to “Restore this version” or “Dismiss this preview”.
Here’s an example that almost made me jump out of my skin. I opened the Versions inspector for a document, clicked on an old version, then closed the inspector. Next, I reopened the Versions inspector and… it is empty. For a moment I thought it had swaped versions and trashed the old ones. When I reloaded the page (in the sidebar, selecting another document, then selecting the first one again), the correct version re-appeared (with all the versions intact).
Well, that sounds like a bug. @cgrunenberg surely has his thoughts on it but it seems to me, closing the inspector would just release the selected version.
Although once you have a lot of automatic versions
- How many versions per document are you allowing in the Files > General > Max. Versions settings?
- How long are you keeping them?
How many versions / how long?
Right now, as I test my best use of versioning, I have it set to 50, and unlimited time (but limited memory). I tried setting it to a small number, but auto-versions happen so frequently that the version I wanted (one from earlier today, yesterday, or a couple days ago) would often be gone. Yes, I know I can save named ones! But a common use-case for versioning for me is dealing with unexpected situations, where you want to find an earlier version you neglected to save at the time: “Shoot, I deleted something from this document a couple days ago that would actually be perfect now…. where was that?”
It’s be interesting to be able to set that pace of versioning to something slower, e.g. save each hour, or save a version for each editing session (save whenever the document loses focus).
Geez, I’m just never satisfied, am I? 
“I was thinking it and he said it!” 
You do realize versions consume space, correct?
Space is infinite though, according to Carl Sagan. 
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