User profile for user: Rmandree
Rmandree Author
User level: Level 1
51 points

Please help me recover lost Pages documents

A few months ago I started getting a pop-up alert when opening Pages documents "Can't Collaborate. To collaborate, you'll need to use Pages on iCloud.com or Pages on a newer Mac." After researching further I was informed that this is related to the inability to update to the newest iOS available due to having an older MacBook Air. Though frustrating, it did not seem detrimental until the past few weeks where I noticed that despite manually saving the documents, they will intermittently revert back to a VERY OLD version which I am assuming is the originally saved document prior to any edits.


Two of the documents in question resulted in several hours of lost work, and I am devastated with the thought that these are permanently lost despite every effort to back up my work including manually saving them and syncing between iCloud and Google Drive.


It may or may not be relevant to include that throughout the course of the day I have been able to open and re-open these documents which reflect the edits/most current version including a letter I have been working on for the past two weeks (including Monday), but upon opening it today I realized that all of my content was missing other than the few lines included when I first started and saved the document. Why is this happening? Is there any chance at recovering all of the content? How do I prevent this from being an ongoing issue? Why would the document appear to have saved content throughout the day only to delete everything other than the original content?


I sincerely appreciate any help with this because I am almost in tears at this point.


I am not worried about collaboration, I just want Pages to function in a normal and reliable manner as to avoid hours or lost time and effort-and "saving" a document should result in the document actually being saved rather than deleting all content.


Sincerely,

Ryan M. Andrée


In addition to the two alerts mentioned and included in screenshots below, another pop up which states "you are offline but can still edit" appears which I do not understand since I am not offline--but once again, I will just be satisfied with the ability to save my documents locally without a concern for lost work.



MacBook Air 13″

Posted on Jan 24, 2024 11:30 AM

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User profile for user: VikingOSX
VikingOSX
User level: Level 10
127,384 points

Posted on Jan 31, 2024 2:02 PM

Apple designed Pages to be used on Apple devices saving either to local, iCloud, or Box cloud services. Though you might have a Google Drive app on the Mac, it is an obfuscation of the Drive remote filesystem, and not an extension of the Apple filesystem. Pages collaboration requires everyone involved is using the current version of Pages. The minimum requirements are available in Intro to collaboration in Pages - Apple Support.


Google designed Google Drive to be compatible with Microsoft Office and Google Docs documents, but not Apple Pages documents. Though Pages documents, like Word documents are renamed zip containers. Google Drive treats Word documents correctly and if you inadvertently double-click on a Pages document, Drive will attempt to unzip it — permanently damaging it.


The installation of a Google Drive application on macOS is sensitive to staying version current, and is simply an abstraction of the Google Server filesystem, not the local Apple filesystem or iCloud that Pages expects. Although I do have a Google Drive account, I access it through a browser, not through a locally installed Google app, and I keep Pages, Numbers, and Keynote documents off of it.


If you had documents on iCloud Drive and somehow they were inadvertently deleted, there is a 30-day sliding window timeframe where you can restore them upon signing into iCloud dot com with your Apple ID. Files lost or damaged on Google Drive are probably gone, though I have no history of needing to recover documents from Drive.


Pages does not automatically autosave document contents until after a first manual save, giving the document, whether on the local filesystem, or iCloud Drive, a proper filename. If you just start blithely typing away and don't save, you are risking the loss of that content. I also repeatedly remind Pages users to use Apple's built-in Time Machine backup service to a locally mounted external drive. For saved documents, it is the best means to recover what might be otherwise lost documents. For documents saved on the local filesystem, there is also Pages Revert To > Browse All Versions… for retrieving past document edits.


Some of the features discussed in the Pages User Guide for Mac - Apple Support are for the current release of Pages and may not reflect features evident in your older version.



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User profile for user: VikingOSX
VikingOSX
User level: Level 10
127,384 points

Jan 31, 2024 2:02 PM in response to Rmandree

Apple designed Pages to be used on Apple devices saving either to local, iCloud, or Box cloud services. Though you might have a Google Drive app on the Mac, it is an obfuscation of the Drive remote filesystem, and not an extension of the Apple filesystem. Pages collaboration requires everyone involved is using the current version of Pages. The minimum requirements are available in Intro to collaboration in Pages - Apple Support.


Google designed Google Drive to be compatible with Microsoft Office and Google Docs documents, but not Apple Pages documents. Though Pages documents, like Word documents are renamed zip containers. Google Drive treats Word documents correctly and if you inadvertently double-click on a Pages document, Drive will attempt to unzip it — permanently damaging it.


The installation of a Google Drive application on macOS is sensitive to staying version current, and is simply an abstraction of the Google Server filesystem, not the local Apple filesystem or iCloud that Pages expects. Although I do have a Google Drive account, I access it through a browser, not through a locally installed Google app, and I keep Pages, Numbers, and Keynote documents off of it.


If you had documents on iCloud Drive and somehow they were inadvertently deleted, there is a 30-day sliding window timeframe where you can restore them upon signing into iCloud dot com with your Apple ID. Files lost or damaged on Google Drive are probably gone, though I have no history of needing to recover documents from Drive.


Pages does not automatically autosave document contents until after a first manual save, giving the document, whether on the local filesystem, or iCloud Drive, a proper filename. If you just start blithely typing away and don't save, you are risking the loss of that content. I also repeatedly remind Pages users to use Apple's built-in Time Machine backup service to a locally mounted external drive. For saved documents, it is the best means to recover what might be otherwise lost documents. For documents saved on the local filesystem, there is also Pages Revert To > Browse All Versions… for retrieving past document edits.


Some of the features discussed in the Pages User Guide for Mac - Apple Support are for the current release of Pages and may not reflect features evident in your older version.



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Please help me recover lost Pages documents

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