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Disable autosave

Hello, anybody figured out how one can disable autosave? I just *don't* want it, and I have my reasons.

Thanks,

Mac OS X (10.7)

Posted on Jul 21, 2011 10:30 AM

Top-ranking reply

Ian Parkinson

Level 6

10,746 points

Posted on Jul 21, 2011 10:32 AM

I don't think so.

View in context

696 replies

Jul 26, 2011 3:10 AM in response to lucafrombrooklyn

Just a piece of info on hard disk occupation:

In a one- and-a-half day of non continuous work with a Pages document of about 3500 words, which occupies in my disk 300KB, the relevant folder containing the versions of my documents (in /.DocumentRevisions-V100, to be accessed with root priviledges) occupies 15 MB. You can do the math for your own documents.

Jul 26, 2011 3:27 AM in response to lucafrombrooklyn

That's far too much consuption for a productive release!

The reason why I have the wish to turn it off is that I have no clue when it does save what. There is no help available. On the Apple website it says:

Auto Save in OS X Lion automatically saves your work,

while you work,
during pauses and
every five minutes

But if I want to revert to the last saved version, is that the version I have saved or the one Lion saved in the background?

Jul 26, 2011 3:48 AM in response to papalapapp

Papapapp:

This is not an easy question to answer, and it is part of the problem. For example in a previous message cocoofor.... wrote that I was spreading misinfo by saying that "revert to saved" does not give you back your last saved version. Actually, it is more complicated than that and it depends on your workflow.

Here is my test, with Pages. The result is: "Revert to saved" gives you the last version you saved ONLY if you call it immediately within the same session. Otherwise it does not just give you the versions you saved, but all the versions IT saved. That is, it pops up the full Versions window system and your last saved version is lost inside them. Which makes it useless. Here is my test, try it to see if you get the same.

-- open a doument.

-- save it

-- write 1

-- go get a coffee

-- write 2

-- go get a coffee

-- write 3

-- save. You last saved version is now 123

-- write 4

-- go get a coffee

-- write 5

-- quit

-- reopen

-- try "Revert to saved..."

What I get is NOT the version with 123 (that is the only version I have explicitly saved). What I get is two options: one, to go back to the last open version (that is, one with 1 2 3 4 5, and not the one I saved. (This is because quitting forces autosave of a version no matter what. It's true that YOU quit, but it's also true that in most cases you don't want to save what you did before quitting, and you are not asked now to save unsaved changes.)

The other option is to browse all the versions, and, there, I find five documents: one with 1, one with 1, 2, one with 1,2,3, one with 1,2,3,4, one with 1,2,3,4,5. Instead, I should only find the version with 1 2 3, if Versions gave back only the versions I save as Cocoofor.... suggested. That is, i will never be able to locate what was my last saved version, for what I can see.

Now, this may be Pages, but this is what it is (I actually think that's precisely how autosave works. It's not a versioning system, it's more than that: it's saving everything you do no matter what, at regular intervals).

This, of course, quite asides of all the other considerations about the utility of autosave, namely: because you have no version diffs, you can't even begin to understand which version you want to retrieve for minimally complex documents.

There are many better ways to implement this feature!

putnik

Level 4

1,179 points

Jul 26, 2011 4:35 AM in response to lucafrombrooklyn

I like your analysis, more detailed than I tried to do. I hope you will send it with a Bug Report to Apple!

Jul 26, 2011 5:08 AM in response to lucafrombrooklyn

Yes, I would see this as a bug, too.

Glad I can't reproduce that. I did the test and I only get to see my hand-saved versions and the "closing-autosave" version. But that last one is inconsistent with the "resume" philosophy, as you pointed out luca.

Caledai

Level 1

25 points

Jul 26, 2011 7:41 AM in response to lucafrombrooklyn

Are you talking Auto Save - or Saved States?

They are two different things.

In regards to states - I can't guarantee this doesn't cause issues, but we tested this with excel.

Opened a document, made some changes, quit

Opened excel, document restored.

Went to ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.microsoft.excel.savedState

Deleted the contents of that folder.

Using terminal - sudo chmod 000 ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.microsoft.excel.savedState

Opened excel, changed a document, quit without saving

Opened excel, prompt for new document.

To put it simply - the saved state was unable to write the current state.

So if your prepared to lock down individual folders, you do have per application control.

Jul 26, 2011 8:25 AM in response to lucafrombrooklyn

The question of this thread is: can we switch off autosave? The answer is, as it appears, no.

Then the issue is: is it good or bad?

Or is it? What is that Reinhold Niebuhr said about trying to change the things we can't. This question has been answered, perhaps it's time to move on (after 96 posts already 🙂 )

Perhaps a thread should be started where everyone can debate the issues that Lion developers made, good or bad - but oh wait, there are already hundreds!

I know that I am guilty of being a blabber mouth, but my inbox is breaking😉

MccoQy

Level 1

58 points

Jul 28, 2011 3:50 AM in response to lucafrombrooklyn

This is what happend to me yesterday: I have a lot of files with code templates or documentations. I often have to open old documents e.g. to copy parts of previous content into new documents. So I opened an old file, and it seems like I accidentially deleted a few lines of code. I closed the file and the change was saved without any notification!

I reopened the same document later in the afternoon and tried to copy coding to an IDE, I got error messages there and it took me > 1 hour until I found the reason (the deleted lines). It was possible to revert to the old version, but before I can reload an old version I need the information from somewhere that a new version was created. Not every change to document is intended!

Now assume I would have opened this document after one year or later. Question 1) will I still have the old version after 1 year or later? What happens when I copy the files to a new Mac in this time?

And Question 2) Somewhere in this thread I read that I can lock files to prevent changes. Is there a way to automatically lock all files in my user folder?

I think there should be a switch in each application (like Pages, Numbers...) to enable/disable auto save. Additonally to enable it per document, if disabled for the application. Everyone would be happy this way. The oldest documents in my user folder are from 1996. I don't think these files will survive another 15 years with auto save on ;-)

Jul 28, 2011 4:14 AM in response to MccoQy

Exact the same issue here. I had broken content on my website due to autosave in Textedit. I opened a file via FTP and autosave punched it onto the server.

To your first question: As far as I know, if you copy a file outside your file system, the history is gone, even if the document comes back to your Mac again. Would have been bad luck for you. 😟

Your second question: In the Time Machine settings you can select the time span after which Lion will autolock your files. One day, week, month or year. But then, you'll have to unlock it every time (copy is allowed though).

I think this would make sense:

- Per App a default setting on/off to handle old files.

- Enable/disable it on a file basis.

- On creating a document there should be a checkbox to decide individually for new documents. Clean and easy.

Jul 28, 2011 4:18 AM in response to papalapapp

Exact the same issue here. I had broken content on my website due to autosave in Textedit. I opened a file via FTP and autosave punched it onto the server.

The solution there of course is to use another editor. I am surprised to see so many people using textedit and preview for serious work...learn something new everyday eh?

Jul 28, 2011 5:07 AM in response to coocooforcocoapuffs

You're right. That's what I've done. Now I only use TextWrangler to edit text files but I still haven't found a good alternative to Preview. Just something to crop, adjust colors and contrast on images, precisely things that became much slower on the Lion's Preview.

MccoQy

Level 1

58 points

Jul 28, 2011 5:13 AM in response to coocooforcocoapuffs

coocooforcocoapuffs wrote:

The solution there of course is to use another editor. I am surprised to see so many people using textedit and preview for serious work...learn something new everyday eh?

For me it is Pages I use, as I can write technical documentations with coding, screenshots and tables in one document. Actually I like Pages, as it is (was) easy to use, reliable and it has great sharing options (send by mail as pdf with one click). But with Auto Save it gets unusable.

I will write feedback to Apple as well, and hope this helps. But in the worst case I have to look for another word processing application, but I hope this is not necessary...

Jul 28, 2011 5:23 AM in response to MccoQy

yes, my philosophy (and I use my macs mostly for biz) is if you want good software, ya gotta pay extra for it. For example, my replacement for preview is quicklook or photoshop if I have to edit. Interesting that preview is called "preview" and not imageeditor. I always looked at preview as just that, something to look but not save.

BBEDIT is also very good, and works with all types of text files. I do use iWork and like it a lot, but I also have to have Office 2011 installed for my biz. That one is a toss up for me, I switch back and forth all the time to reduce boredom. So far versions has not got in the way for me. I just ignore it, hoping someday it will be a global solution for all apps. Well, enough, good luck!

Jul 28, 2011 5:48 AM in response to coocooforcocoapuffs

coocooforcocoapuffs wrote:

The solution there of course is to use another editor. I am surprised to see so many people using textedit and preview for serious work...learn something new everyday eh?

No it's not. Sooner or later every software on Lion will be adapted for Autosave and Versions. That's why I need an option to fully disable those features. At least I need an option to lock the files automatically when closing them. A whole day is way to much time to accidentally currupt them.

Jul 28, 2011 7:43 AM in response to AndreasSt

Sooner or later every software on Lion will be adapted for Autosave and Versions.

Ha, not in my lifetime. Plus you won't have to update something like BBEDIT for a good long time. Right now you can't disable those features so why fight what you can't change. That's the definition of insanity. 🙂

Disable autosave