I recently upgraded from 10.7 Lion to 10.13 High Sierra.
In Lion, I was using the following Terminal commands:
(For Preview)
defaults write -app 'preview' ApplePersistence -bool no
(For TextEdit)
defaults write -app 'textedit' ApplePersistence -bool no
defaults write -app textedit AutosavingDelay -int 0
That was because Auto Save and Versions were not useful features to me. I always only want one version of each file (I manually backup different file versions when needed), and I always want to be asked whether to save or discard changes made on a document ― instead of the app saving them regardless.
The aforementioned commands were working fine. Now, in High Sierra, I’ve come across the “Ask to keep changes when closing documents” option in System Preferences:
http://i.imgur.com/4w3M5t9.png (Click the link to see the image)
With this option enabled, while Preview (and TextEdit) does always prompt me to either Save or Revert Changes that I might have made on a document, the problem is that if I choose Revert, it does not also discard those changes. It instead saves every single change made, as a different version of the file under Browse All Versions...:
http://i.imgur.com/LJVEFiU.png (Click the link to see the image)
I mostly work on 40-50 MB PNG pictures using Preview, editing them over and over again. In the long run, I suspect, the cache from all the consecutive versions that accumulates in those files’ Versions, is going to take up a lot of space on my SSD. Yet, even if this feature doesn’t in fact take up considerable disk space, I find no reason to keep something I don’t need; previous files’ versions that I have no use for being an example.
Is there any way to prevent Preview and TextEdit from using Versions, like I did in Lion using those Terminal commands?
If not, can I flush/delete previous files’ Versions in order to always only keep the latest version of a file? (as I can always manually backup other versions of a file myself, if occasionally needed)
Let me know, thank you.
In Lion, I was using the following Terminal commands:
(For Preview)
defaults write -app 'preview' ApplePersistence -bool no
(For TextEdit)
defaults write -app 'textedit' ApplePersistence -bool no
defaults write -app textedit AutosavingDelay -int 0
That was because Auto Save and Versions were not useful features to me. I always only want one version of each file (I manually backup different file versions when needed), and I always want to be asked whether to save or discard changes made on a document ― instead of the app saving them regardless.
The aforementioned commands were working fine. Now, in High Sierra, I’ve come across the “Ask to keep changes when closing documents” option in System Preferences:
http://i.imgur.com/4w3M5t9.png (Click the link to see the image)
With this option enabled, while Preview (and TextEdit) does always prompt me to either Save or Revert Changes that I might have made on a document, the problem is that if I choose Revert, it does not also discard those changes. It instead saves every single change made, as a different version of the file under Browse All Versions...:
http://i.imgur.com/LJVEFiU.png (Click the link to see the image)
I mostly work on 40-50 MB PNG pictures using Preview, editing them over and over again. In the long run, I suspect, the cache from all the consecutive versions that accumulates in those files’ Versions, is going to take up a lot of space on my SSD. Yet, even if this feature doesn’t in fact take up considerable disk space, I find no reason to keep something I don’t need; previous files’ versions that I have no use for being an example.
Is there any way to prevent Preview and TextEdit from using Versions, like I did in Lion using those Terminal commands?
If not, can I flush/delete previous files’ Versions in order to always only keep the latest version of a file? (as I can always manually backup other versions of a file myself, if occasionally needed)
Let me know, thank you.
