How to see Edit History in Google Docs

Google Docs provides a feature where various team members can create a document simultaneously. Each person creates the context and saves the file, that instance goes into the History of the document. An authorised person can view the history and restore the session from any point.

There are many benefits of accessing the history and edit it, if required. It can help you in many ways like when you are working in teams or during collaborations or checking the timeline. Below are mentioned benefits of editing history in Google Docs.

Uses of Edit History in Google Docs

In Google Docs, the Edit History feature is frequently used for a variety of reasons, including:

1. Collaboration and Teamwork:

Various team members are working on the same document, then the edit history feature allows them to actually manage and track the changes made by the sub-collaborators. This is also beneficial to avoid merge conflicts and enables improved collaboration, as each team member gets the updated version of the file or document.

2. Recovery from Mistakes:

Many times, we unintentionally delete or manipulate the data which is very much significant in the document. With the use of the edit history feature, we can reliably retrieve the previous version and actually restore the content to a point before the deletion or manipulation of data was done.

3. Data Progression:

The edit History feature in Google Docs also offers a timeline for the creation of the document, this enables us to view how the data is evolved, which is beneficial for getting the knowledge of the entire process behind the creation of the document.

4. Revision and Review:

This feature is helpful when we want to review or revise our document. This allows us to view what changes or modifications were done by whom, this is helpful to provide feedback or perform the auditing changes made over time.

Now let’s begin with the process of how we can actually see edit history in Google Docs:

How To See Edit History in Google Docs?

Step 1: As Google Docs also offers its service through the website, we will see the Edit History of our document by using the Google Docs website.

Navigate to the Google Docs website, use the below URL to visit the Google Docs website.

https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/ 

Google Docs

Step 2: Once the website is loaded, we need to open the document for which we need to view the Edit History, we can upload the document from our local drive or we can also import it from Google Drive and other sources.

Uploaded Document

Step 3: After uploading or opening the document, we need to navigate to the “File” Menu option, which is on the left corner of the main screen.

Click on that option to get the detailed drop-down list.

Drop-down Menu after clicking on the File Tab

Step 4: From the drop-down list, select the option “Version History“, and later click on “See Version History“. After clicking on the See Version History, a pane with the versions will get displayed on the right side of the main screen.

Select Version History option

Step 5: Now, once the pane gets displayed, we can scroll through the versions and click on any of the versions to actually see the document as it appeared at that moment in time. After clicking on the version, we can actually see the modification done by the collaborators.

Click on the version you want see

Keyboard Shortcuts on Windows for seeing Edit History in Google Docs:

Shortcuts can save our time and effort in navigating. Using a shortcut we can directly go through the actual functionality rather than following the long path. To navigate directly to the Edit History of our document, we need to click the “Ctrl+Alt+Shift+H” keys on the keyboard to see the Version History without navigating through various steps.

How to Restore the Version of a Document from Edit History in Google Docs?

Restoring the version of a document from Edit History in Google Docs is an easy process, we need to navigate through the list of Version history, need to select the version which is important and need to restore it. After selecting the version, we can directly restore it.

Below we have added the detailed steps to restore the version. Follow the below steps one by one, your document will get restored from any version as you want.

Step 1: As the history pane is displayed on the screen, we need to choose or select the version which we need to restore. We can scroll through the list if the edit history is lengthy.

Selecting the version you want to restore

Step 2: We can also preview any specific version before actually resorting it, we just need to click on it, and the preview will get displayed.

Preview of Version

Step 3: Now, for restoring the version, we need to click on the dots which are just next to the version history pane in Google Docs.

Click on dots next to Version history pane

Step 4: Now, click on the three dots, and a menu will get displayed. We will get an option of “Restore this version”, click on that option to revert the version.

Click on Restore this Version

Step 5: Restoring the document version is done successfully.

Restored File

Conclusion:

In conclusion, Google Docs has the crucial feature of Version History or Edit History, where the users can actually keep regular track of their edit history. If they face any issue in the document or some mistaken modification is been done, then using the “Restore this version” function, the user can actually revert to the previous state, without facing any severe issues in the working document.

FAQs

1. Weather more than 2 users can view the edit history of the shared document?

Answer:

Yes, multiple users can actually view the edit history of the shared document. They can view the history at the same time and also restore any version at the same instance of time.

2. What is the number of versions that are saved in the Edit History?

Answer:

Google Docs provided an unlimited number of versions that are saved in the Edit History.

3. How does Google Docs track the change which is made by any specific user in the document?

Answer:

Google Docs represents the change made by the specific user in the document with their colour. This colour is assigned unique to each user in the shared document.

4. Is there a provision to add comments on the version in Edit History?

Answer:

As of now, Google Docs doesn’t provide any feature for adding comments on changes done.