RonL
Level 1 (45 points)

Q: Speed up your OS... turn Autosave & Versions off globally

If you're experiencing slow opening apps or windows since upgrading to Mountain Lion... as I have... and you don't want your OS to automatically save your TextEdit files, etc. then simply disable Autosave and Versions via Terminal.

 

Open Terminal and enter this command which will turn off Autosave & Versions globally:

 

defaults write -g ApplePersistence -bool no

 

Now reboot.

 

Voila!

 

I experienced a very noticeable speed increase when opening apps and even opening some previously slow opening Dock folders after doing the above.

 

If for some reason in the future you want to turn Autosave and Versions back on just change 'no' to 'yes'

 

Feel the speed!

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion, 27" iMac 32" secondary monitor

Posted on Jul 30, 2012 8:17 AM

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RonL

Q: Speed up your OS... turn Autosave & Versions off globally

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  • by Kurt Lang,

    Kurt Lang Kurt Lang Jul 30, 2012 12:19 PM in response to Kurt Lang
    Level 8 (38,049 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 30, 2012 12:19 PM in response to Kurt Lang

    This info is just to verify my last post, and what actually happens.

     

    For those who have tried the Terminal command, it's is very important that you restart after entering it. The change is not read or acted on by the OS until you restart and it reads the contents of the hidden .GlobalPreferences.plist in your user account. Once you restart, then things change. Here's the difference between Preview and TextEdit with the option on (default) and off.

     

    Preview's menu appears like this by default:

     

    Screen Shot 2012-07-30 at 2.03.14 PM.png

     

    After entering the Terminal command and restarting, it becomes this:

     

    Screen Shot 2012-07-30 at 2.06.30 PM.png

     

    Duplicate disappears from the menu, but so does Save As. So you lose that ability with Preview. You can only Save. If you have the option in the System Preferences on to ask if you want to save changes when closing a document, then default button to cancel is "Revert to Saved". After the command, it becomes the older style "Don't Save". So the main loss with Preview is there is no Save As at all. Not even Duplicate.

     

    TextEdit's menu appears like this by default:

     

    Screen Shot 2012-07-30 at 2.04.11 PM.png

     

    After the Terminal command, it becomes this:

     

    Screen Shot 2012-07-30 at 2.08.13 PM.png

     

    Duplicate goes away and is replace by Save As with the long standard Command+Shift+S keystroke. And it works just as you would expect. You can make all of the modifications you want to a text document and do a Save As. The new document has all of the changes, and the original closes unaltered.

  • by raftr,

    raftr raftr Jul 30, 2012 12:31 PM in response to Kurt Lang
    Level 1 (0 points)
    iTunes
    Jul 30, 2012 12:31 PM in response to Kurt Lang

    Yes, I did restart it.

    I removed the "shortcut" trick that swapped "save as" with "duplicate" and tried your Terminal command again, then restarted.

     

    It behaves the same way again, there is still that error message.

  • by Kurt Lang,

    Kurt Lang Kurt Lang Jul 30, 2012 12:36 PM in response to raftr
    Level 8 (38,049 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 30, 2012 12:36 PM in response to raftr

    Sorry, I have no suggestions for that. I'm not seeing any error messages.

  • by raftr,

    raftr raftr Jul 30, 2012 12:41 PM in response to Kurt Lang
    Level 1 (0 points)
    iTunes
    Jul 30, 2012 12:41 PM in response to Kurt Lang

    I restarted again… and I got the prompt as well.

  • by Kurt Lang,

    Kurt Lang Kurt Lang Jul 30, 2012 1:03 PM in response to raftr
    Level 8 (38,049 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 30, 2012 1:03 PM in response to raftr

    Possibly the system is confused where to put Save As or Duplicate, or how to invoke them when you do both the shortcut change and the Terminal command? I used only the Terminal command to turn off Autosave/Duplicate. The above is how the menus changed on their own.

  • by raftr,

    raftr raftr Jul 30, 2012 1:05 PM in response to Kurt Lang
    Level 1 (0 points)
    iTunes
    Jul 30, 2012 1:05 PM in response to Kurt Lang

    This is why I now tried to do the Terminal command on its own, without the amended shortcuts, with the same result.

  • by RonL,

    RonL RonL Jul 30, 2012 1:23 PM in response to Kurt Lang
    Level 1 (45 points)
    Jul 30, 2012 1:23 PM in response to Kurt Lang

    Kurt... and the "Revert" in the save dialog box changed to "Don't Save"... for me.

  • by Kurt Lang,

    Kurt Lang Kurt Lang Jul 30, 2012 1:46 PM in response to RonL
    Level 8 (38,049 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 30, 2012 1:46 PM in response to RonL

    Correct. It's easily lost between the screen shots, but I noted it above for Preview:

     

    the default button to cancel is "Revert to Saved". After the command, it becomes the older style "Don't Save".

  • by RonL,

    RonL RonL Jul 30, 2012 9:32 PM in response to Kurt Lang
    Level 1 (45 points)
    Jul 30, 2012 9:32 PM in response to Kurt Lang

    I now see the error message others are describing.

     

    The reason I wasn't seeing it before is when I use TextEdit I manually save obsessively.

     

    When you don't leave a TextEdit file in a changed, but unsaved, state you'll never see the error message... at least I haven't.

     

    However... if you leave a TextEdit file changed but UNsaved... after several minutes the error will occur.

     

    It appears to be innocuous, simply dismiss the error message and do a save or change as usual. But if it makes someone nervous that this may cause other problems I can understand their feeling more comfortable reverting so that Autosave is once again active.

     

    As far as I can see this only occurs with TextEdit.

     

    I deliberately left other files changed, but unsaved, by several other apps (Pages, TextWrangler, Bean, etc.) and not one of them threw up an error message. And this was after leaving them open quite a long time. Why Apple's TextEdit does this and other apps don't.... ?

     

    I've personally experienced enough of a speed improvement (and I don't like the OS automatically saving files I've opened) that I'm leaving the Autosave disabled. And if the error message gets on my nerves too much I'll probably just use an alternative for TextEdit... lots out there.

  • by Gnarlodious,

    Gnarlodious Gnarlodious Jul 30, 2012 9:58 PM in response to RonL
    Level 4 (3,243 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 30, 2012 9:58 PM in response to RonL

    For anyone who uses Xcode, watch out! Autosave will save your scripts when you don't want them saved, whether you are in the middle of coding or if your cat walked on the keyboard (which mine loves to do). The result is a crashed script with no warning, and if you quit Xcode you have no cmd-z upon reopening the script to fix it. This has ruined my Xcode experience. A argued with Apple about the problem but they are adamant it should be normal behavior.

  • by RonL,

    RonL RonL Jul 31, 2012 5:34 AM in response to Gnarlodious
    Level 1 (45 points)
    Jul 31, 2012 5:34 AM in response to Gnarlodious

    "... they are adamant it should be normal behavior."

     

    Gnarlodious,

     

    I've forgotten how many times I've seen "... behavior is as expected." <g>

     

    Yes... very frustrating.

     

    There really needs to be an official way to turn Autosave off.

     

    If enough people complain... as has happened with "Save As"... I imagine we'll either be given the option... or at least a kludge to deactivate it.

  • by Kurt Lang,

    Kurt Lang Kurt Lang Jul 31, 2012 6:17 AM in response to RonL
    Level 8 (38,049 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 31, 2012 6:17 AM in response to RonL

    I now see the message after following your outline. I too had been saving without adding any unsaved changes. TextEdit will just sit there forever if you've saved. If you don't, you get this message after about 30 seconds:

     

    Screen Shot 2012-07-31 at 8.06.22 AM.png

     

    Which is a bunch of hooey since the file is on my desktop and I can save it anytime I want. It will certainly throw people off though when it keeps reappearing if you haven't saved.

     

    Which for me, just goes back to the previous solution. Delete Mountain Lion's version of TextEdit from the drive and use the one from Snow Leopard.

    they are adamant it should be normal behavior.

    *Sigh* The same arrogant attitude they've been stuck on since Lion. Somebody there thinks they know better than you what to do with, and when to save YOUR data. Does Apple really not understand that my desktop computer is a workstation and not an iPad? I am plenty capable of deciding when my files need to be saved. Stop trying to make that decision for me!

  • by softwater,

    softwater softwater Jul 31, 2012 6:45 AM in response to RonL
    Level 5 (5,392 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 31, 2012 6:45 AM in response to RonL
    There really needs to be an official way to turn Autosave off.

     

     

    AFAIK, the only way to disable Autosave is to lock the Saved Application State folder. There's no way to turn off Versions. Do not go down the road of deleting or locking the DocumentRevisions-V100 folder. The only thing you can do with Versions is to avoid using Apps that have it enabled.

  • by Kurt Lang,

    Kurt Lang Kurt Lang Jul 31, 2012 6:46 AM in response to softwater
    Level 8 (38,049 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 31, 2012 6:46 AM in response to softwater

    AFAIK, the only way to disable Autosave is to lock the Saved Application State folder.

    That's a start at least, and easy to do.

  • by Apple 1976-2011,

    Apple 1976-2011 Apple 1976-2011 Aug 1, 2012 11:53 AM in response to Kurt Lang
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 1, 2012 11:53 AM in response to Kurt Lang

    Kurt Lang wrote:

     

    I now see the message after following your outline. I too had been saving without adding any unsaved changes. TextEdit will just sit there forever if you've saved. If you don't, you get this message after about 30 seconds:

     

    Screen Shot 2012-07-31 at 8.06.22 AM.png

     

     

    This is an error related to the (Mountain) Lion sandbox (and only happens in TextEdit; all other apps works fine).

     

    Fortunately, there's a workaround. The following Terminal command will stop these error messages from showing up in the future:

     

    defaults write -app textedit AutosavingDelay -int 0

     

    This effectively disables the classic/real/pre-Lion/TextEdit-only autosaving mechanism, which is what the sandbox has problems with.

     

    P.S. I just posted a tutorial about how to disable Auto Save and Versions. It can be found here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4166543?tstart=0

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