Autosave and earlier versions

While you work, Writer keeps copies of your document so that a crash or a mistake doesn’t cost you more than a few sentences. You can open any of the recent copies back into the editor.

How autosave works

• When the document has unsaved changes, Writer takes a copy 20 seconds after you stop typing. Every edit restarts the 20 seconds, so a copy is taken once you pause, not while you are in the middle of a sentence.
• Writer keeps the last ten copies of each document. When it takes an eleventh, it deletes the oldest.
• Copies are complete .docx files of the document as it was at that moment.
• Nothing is copied while there are no unsaved changes.
• If a copy can’t be written — for example because the disk is full — Writer carries on without interrupting you, and tries again after your next edit.

The tooltip of the clock button in the Versions group on the Review tab shows when the last copy was taken, for example Earlier versions — last kept a copy at 14:32.

Where the copies are kept

Copies are stored in Writer’s own application data folder on this computer:

• Never next to your document, so Writer doesn’t add files to your folders.
• Never over your document, so a copy can’t overwrite a good file.
• Never anywhere else. Copies don’t leave this computer.

Each document has its own set of copies, told apart by the document’s full location. Two documents with the same name in different folders have separate copies.

Saving the document doesn’t delete its copies. They stay available as earlier versions.

Open an earlier version

1. On the Review tab, in the Versions group, click the clock button.
2. In the Earlier versions pane, find the copy you want. Each copy shows when it was taken and its size in KB.
3. Click the copy.

The document on screen is replaced with that copy, and the status bar says Restored the version from and the time. The caret goes to the start of the document.

Opening a copy doesn’t change the file on disk. To keep the restored version, click Save. To go back to what you had before, press ⌘Z (Ctrl+Z on Windows and Linux) — restoring a version is one undo step.

Times are shown like this:

In the pane:

• Click the circular arrow (Look again) to refresh the list.
• Click the × to close the pane.

If there are no copies yet, the pane explains that Writer keeps a copy of the document as you work, on this computer and nowhere else, and that copies start once there is an unsaved change.

If a copy can’t be read, the status bar says Could not read that version: and the reason.

Recover work after Writer closed

If Writer or your computer stopped before you saved, open the document again the usual way. If Writer has a copy that is newer than the file on disk, a dialog titled There is newer work than the file appears as soon as the document opens. It says when the copy was taken.

Writer only offers a copy that is newer than the file. Copies older than your last save are work you already saved, so Writer doesn’t ask about them.

Documents you haven’t saved yet

A new document has no location, so its copies are kept under its name — Untitled document — and all untitled documents share one set of copies.

If Writer closes before you save a new document, create a new document again: when there is a copy of earlier untitled work, Writer offers it in the There is newer work than the file dialog. Click Open the newer copy to get your work back, then save it.

Because untitled documents share their copies, this dialog can also appear when you create a new document after working on an earlier untitled one. Click Keep the file to start with a blank page.