How to Access Google Docs Version History
Google Docs version history helps you control changes made to your shared documents, which is important when you’re collaborating on documents with a group of people. Accessing the revision history in Google Docs is easy, and there are a couple of ways to do it.
Work With Revision History in Google Docs
Once the Version history for a document is open, you should see a list of the saved versions of the document. Depending on how many people are collaborating on the document and how often changes are made, that list may be long or short. And unless you’ve previously accessed the version history and made changes to it, each version will be titled with the date and time changes were made to the document.
Color-Code Collaborators
One of the first things you’ll probably notice is that each person collaborating on a document has a small colored dot next to their name. These colors are assigned by Google, and when you click a version of the document, as long as the Show changes option at the bottom of the Version history list is selected, changes made will be highlighted in a color that corresponds to the dot next to the name of the person who made the change.
Available Options
Once you select a version, a three-dot menu will appear to the right of the version name. When you select that menu, you’ll find two options:
Name this version: Select this option to open the version name (which is displayed as a date and time by default) for editing. You can then type the name you want that version to have and press the Enter key on your keyboard to accept the new name.Make a copy: This option allows you to create a new copy of your document, as it was on the date and time of the selected version. A dialog box opens that allows you to create a name for the new document and to choose a location where you would like the document to be stored. If you have shared your document, you’ll also have the option to Share it with the same people.
How to Restore Your Google Doc to a Previous Version
If your reason for looking up the version history in Google Docs is to roll a document back to the state it was in before changes were made, you can do that in a few steps.
