Restore the old version of the document on OneDrive

In the process of working, many times want to find the old version of a document that makes you encounter many difficulties. However, if using Windows 8 or Windows 8.1, these documents have been set up to synchronize with OneDrive, so finding old documents is easy.

By default when documents have been synced with OneDrive, the service will store multiple versions of the same document at different times, each time you make changes to that document. Therefore older versions of the document will be available to download or restore as needed.

Here's how to download or restore the old version of any document you want when using OneDrive:

Activate the commonly used web browser, then access the OneDrive website. Log in with your Microsoft account , select the Files tab in the left column in the OneDrive interface, then find the documents you want to download or restore to the previous version, in case the Files section has many documents stored. You can use the Search feature to quickly find the documents you need.

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Select the document you want to access the old version. On the top toolbar, click the Manager item, in the drop down menu select Version history . Note, this option will only display older versions of Office files such as Word, Excel spreadsheets or Powerpoint presentations.

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Once you've found the document you need, click on the file name to open it with the online Office application. As in this example, the document is an Excel spreadsheet and opened with an Excel online application.

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Looking at the leftmost column, you will see the latest saved version of the document (Current version) and all previous versions (Older versions) . Select each specific time right below and the document will be displayed again in the browser, from here you will know what the old and new documents have changed and choose the right old version of the document you need.

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Once you have selected the correct version of the old document, you will have two options: Restore and Download . If you select Restore , the old document will immediately become the latest saved version, and OneDrive will synchronize it on all devices.

If you want to keep the current version of the document and just want to compare the changes between old and new documents, select Download to download the old version of the document. In the Save As window that appears, select where to save the document, name it and click Save to download. You can also save the old document to the same location as the current version, but use a different name for ease of use and comparison between the old and the new version of the current document.

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Obviously, this feature of OneDrive is useful when you need to find old documents again, to avoid the most mistakes you make when you save changes on the current document.