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Document Snapshots (Version History) in Deckle

Save a named snapshot of a single chapter or scene before a big revision in Deckle, and restore it later without touching the rest of your project.

Before rewriting a chapter, save exactly what it looked like first: a snapshot is a one-click, named copy of a single document you can come back to and restore later, without affecting anything else in your project.

What You Can Do

  • Save a named snapshot of the document you're currently in, capturing its full content at that moment.
  • Keep as many snapshots per document as you want, each with its own name and timestamp.
  • Rename or delete a snapshot at any time.
  • Restore a document to a snapshot, with a safety confirmation before it happens.

How to Use Snapshots

  1. Open the document you want to snapshot, then open the Inspector panel and switch to the Versions tab.
  2. Click + to create a new snapshot, and give it a name (or leave it blank: it'll be labeled "Manual Snapshot").
  3. Keep writing normally: creating a snapshot doesn't lock or change the document, it just saves a copy of its current state.
  4. To go back, find the snapshot you want in the list and click Restore. A confirmation appears before anything changes.
  5. Rename or delete any snapshot from the same list using its pencil or trash icon.

A Couple of Things Worth Knowing

💡 Snapshots are entirely manual: there's no automatic or scheduled snapshotting. If you want a version saved before a big revision, you need to create it yourself, right before you start.

💡 Restoring is undoable immediately afterward. The confirmation dialog explicitly notes that Ctrl+Z (or Cmd+Z) reverses a restore right after it happens, the same as any other edit, so restoring isn't an irreversible action if you change your mind right away.

💡 A snapshot is scoped to one document, not your whole project. For a whole-project safety net, that's what Automatic Backups are for. The two features solve different problems and work independently of each other.

FAQ

Are snapshots created automatically, or do I have to make them myself?

Manually only: click the "+" button in the Inspector's Versions tab whenever you want to save the current state of a document.

Can I undo a restore if I pick the wrong snapshot?

Yes, immediately afterward: Ctrl+Z (Cmd+Z on Mac) reverses a restore the same way it reverses any other edit, right after it happens.

Does creating a snapshot affect the rest of my project?

No. A snapshot only ever captures and restores the single document it was created from.

What's the difference between a snapshot and an automatic backup?

A snapshot is a manual, named save point for one document, restorable from inside that document's Inspector panel. An automatic backup is a full copy of your entire project, taken automatically on open/close/word-count milestones, and restored by extracting a zip file outside the app.