The rules for preserving document versions are based on their being associated with the document’s inode number, and on the same volume. Here are the details and a way to preserve them whatever.
Revisionist
It has been built into macOS and many apps over the last 14 years, but must be one of its least used features. How versions can empower your editing of documents.
Convert a document into a folder containing all its saved versions, and unarchive that folder back into a document with all those saved versions. All using drag-and-drop.
How to reproduce this serious bug in Sonoma 14.4, and how to archive all the versions of a file or document so they can’t get destroyed.
If you want to work on the same document across different Apple platforms, then the option providing most restrictive access to saved versions is iCloud Drive.
If you use apps like Pages and Numbers, and others using macOS versions, those versions can’t be shared across iCloud. Over 13 years, Apple still hasn’t got that working as you’d expect.
Preserve documents according to how much time or money would be needed to replace them. For work in progress, macOS versioning can be a great help.
For working with document versions, managing sparse bundles, benchmarking disk performance, checking TCC privacy protection, and looking up UTIs.
Now supported by many apps, document versions are a free and valuable feature in macOS. Here’s a summary of its features and how to get most from it.
Document versions, accessed through Revert To…, are a major part of the protection macOS provides for dealing with errors. How to get the most from them.
The Eclectic Light Company 