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Recovering a document
Work lost to a crash, a bad change or a damaged file: where the editor keeps copies, and how to get each one back.
Three safety nets
| What it keeps | How long | |
|---|---|---|
| Undo | Every change since the document was opened | Until it is closed |
| The recovery snapshot | Unsaved work, every minute while it changes | Until you save or close normally |
| Versions | The states you chose to keep | The 40 newest unnamed ones, and every named one |
After a crash
When the editor starts after closing unexpectedly, it asks:
Recover unsaved work? The editor closed before document was saved.
Recover opens the snapshot. It remembers which file it came from, so Save puts it back where it belongs. Discard throws it away.
The snapshot is at most a minute old. Anything done in the last minute before the crash is not in it.
After a change you regret
- Just now:
Ctrl+Z, as many times as it takes. Undo reaches back to when the document was opened. - Days ago: File › Versions…. Pick a version and Restore. The state you were in is kept first, so a restore can itself be undone. See Versions.
Keep a version before anything risky: Ctrl+Alt+S, and give it a name — "before the rebrand".
A damaged file
If a document will not open — "The file is damaged (unreadable header)." — the file itself was overwritten or cut short.
- If the editor crashed while saving, start it again: the recovery snapshot may be newer than the file.
- If you set a Backup copy folder in the Versions window, each version is there as a plain document. Open the newest.
- Otherwise, the versions are in the
.airzversionsfolder beside the document, kept in a form the Versions window reads. Send the folder with the damaged file to support: see Reporting a problem.
A file overwritten by Save
Save replaces the file on disk. The state before it is in Versions only if a version was kept: restore it from there. This is why a named version before a big change is worth the keystroke.
Protecting the next one
- Set a Backup copy folder on another disk or a network share in the Versions window, so a lost machine does not take the history with it.
- Send the
.airzversionsfolder with a document when a colleague should have its history too.