Wow - that is scary. I think I saw a way to go to into Terminal to disable AutoSave for certain apps (like having it disabled only for Preview or Garageband).
Either way, I agree, options would be nice...
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Anyway to disable Autosave and Versions on Lion GM?
- Thread starter ctnguye3
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Wow - that is scary. I think I saw a way to go to into Terminal to disable AutoSave for certain apps (like having it disabled only for Preview or Garageband).
Either way, I agree, options would be nice...
If you put the file back, does it relink the version history, or does it delete it?
Nope.. you just don't understand how it works technically. Every HFS formatted volume gets its own DocumentRevisions folder (where the versions are stored), once you create a document on it with a version enbeled app. If you then move or copy the file to another volume, after you made some changes, it's connection to the attached versions will be lost, as they are tied to the file via inodes in the database of the DocumentRevisions folder on the original volume.
If you want versions on an external volume, you have to move the file to that volume before you make any changes, then the versions will be safed in the external volumes DocumentRevisions folder. However… they will be lost again, when you move the file back to your internal drive.
It's still a bit beta, that whole thing.
And beware… versions will not work at all on FAT32 volumes.
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I keep hoping each time I see this topic replied to that someone has found a way to disable these features 
I keep hoping each time I see this topic replied to that someone has found a way to disable these features
I was under the impression that if TimeMachine is off then Versions doesn't work.
unfortunately not, I have time machine off so as to stop it creating local versions of time machine backups
if I open up Pages is still creates numerous versions of the document
No need to do that. You can get rid of the local backups with this command in Terminal
sudo tmutil disablelocal
From here: http://applehelpwriter.com/2011/07/29/access-time-machine-even-when-disconnected/
I need to know how to turn of Resume and Versioning as they play havoc with MS Office 2011. I can't have that! I need those programs too much.
Sent from my 27" iPad
Sent from my 27" iPad
Versioning is a great idea for source-code control systems. Very targeted and necessary considering the R&D that goes into writing software. But to apply that concept(automatically no less) to the entire OS file system is just weird. At the very least Versions should have been "opt in" by default rather then "opt out" per file.
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I do not like it
Autosave and versioning is useful for source code, but CVS is much more flexible than this Lion stuff.
For other file types I see it useless.
Not having an option to disable it is pissing me off (together with some other "amazing" features).
In addition to that I got confirmation we cannot buy a new Apple computer and put Snow Leopard on it. And... I need to buy a new computer since I am changing job and company. So for now I have 2 options:
1. Check if I can configure Windows7 to look and work like W2K
2. Go back to Linux
If this is the direction where OS X is going let's hope for OS XI
Autosave and versioning is useful for source code, but CVS is much more flexible than this Lion stuff.
For other file types I see it useless.
Not having an option to disable it is pissing me off (together with some other "amazing" features).
In addition to that I got confirmation we cannot buy a new Apple computer and put Snow Leopard on it. And... I need to buy a new computer since I am changing job and company. So for now I have 2 options:
1. Check if I can configure Windows7 to look and work like W2K
2. Go back to Linux
If this is the direction where OS X is going let's hope for OS XI
I understand how they did it, that's why I pointed how things can go wrong (like unwanted changes persisted w/o possibility to revert).
Yeah, novadays when people have lots of external drives, pendrives one must remember to check every file against accidental modification before moving it somewhere else. I thought the technology is to help people, not to make things harder. If it is still beta, as you say, they should let people to turn it off if they don't like it.
I thought we are talking about auto save feature, if it was to turn off autosave then it does not work. Here, after upgrade from SL to Lion, this option was disabled by default - so no local versions kept to be then merged into external Time Machine drive, however autosaved versions *are* kept despite how this option is set (sadly :/).
Agreed. Sometimes I think that Lion is like Vista or New Coke - ie, the next version would be then perceived as much better than previous one (like Vista vs W7, New Coke vs Coca Classic).
/Sorry for pretty big multi-quoting/
You were, but I was answering Paulsalter's remark about Time Machine. You don't have to turn of TM to stop it keeping temporary local backups on your Macbook.
As for autosave...there seems to be a bit of confusion. Autosave is not Versions, and Versions is not Resume. (You're right that none of these things are anything to do with Time Machine.
)This 'triumvirate of data guardians' are different things, the backups are kept in different places, and you need different ways to get round each.
Versions, for example, is not available in MS Office (unless they've already done a Lion upgrade...), but Resume will save your Office files in the event of a program crash (unless you've turned Resume off) or a system OS crash (this will save even if you have turned Resume off). When the program or system start back up again, Resume will load the page just as it was.
Versions are kept every hour or so and when you hit the 'Save' command (cmd-s). Autosave happens every couple of minutes, and are used by both Versions and Resume. As far as I know, you can't turn off autosaves. I've seen some people discussing locking the system out of the local application folders for the autosave locations, but this doesn't stop Resume from working, so there are definitely autosaves in other places too.
You can work around some of these things. For Versions (currently only available in Apple apps like Pages, Terminal, Preview), you just lock the document as soon as you open/create it. For Resume, see the link two paragraphs up. The only thing that you can't turn off AT ALL is Resume when your OS crashes/freezes and has to be force booted (holding the power key down for 10secs). Whatever was on your screen will come back up just as it was, regardless of any settings or commands you've pumped into Terminal. This, it seems to me, is probably a good thing (as somebody has already said, especially for devs, whose machines crash a lot!).
Of course, anyone who doesn't want to make everything on their computer discover/recoverable (I'm thinking political bloggers worried about State oppression, rather than net hackers or paedos, but the same applies to all) had better not be using Lion. Remains to be seen how much control Apple's customers will put up with; I'm not sure even your average computer user wants to be fighting with their OS over basic security issues. Still, if MS follow suit, it'll be the beginning of the end of digital privacy.
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managing versions
I posted a tutorial for how to work around and manage Apple's Versions feature here:
http://applehelpwriter.com/2011/08/08/how-to-tame-versions/
I posted a tutorial for how to work around and manage Apple's Versions feature here:
http://applehelpwriter.com/2011/08/08/how-to-tame-versions/
My prediction is that we aren't going to see any "fix" of this problem of Lion forcing the saving of versions and mobile backups without any option to opt out and turn it off.
First a scary description of the problem. I had a generically created file (from command line: find . >my_dir/junk). From the command line I did: srm -mv my_dir/junk. I then looked in /.MobileBackups/Computer/2011-08-16-164420/Volume/[path2my_dir] and saw that a _new_ directory had been created there at 153100 holding the file 'junk' listed with it's original date of creation and fully viewable as a text file.
None of the other contents of my own my_dir were listed there.
(Further exploration showed that when changes were made by moving files, lion created in the backup area, empty directories bearing the names of those files. I expect, but didn't test, that renaming files would similarly cause preservation of the old names.)
The horrible truth is that the very act of removing, even srm removing a file _causes_ it to be saved in the auto save area!
There seems to be a a linking between the /.Mobilebackups and a mounted "volume" /Mobilebackups. Logged in as root, I was unable to remove write permissions, delete, rename, unmount either of those directories or their contents.
I base my prediction that Apple will not 'fix' this problem on the fact that they can't be this dumb. This is not a bug but a feature designed to preserve data that the user would prefer were not recoverable. I doubt Apple would effect such a design without good reason which I'd assume would be pressure from law enforcement. One obvious work around would be to encrypt disks and backups which Apple has made easy. However, be aware that the government has disallowed the development of encryption schemes for which they don't have a back door. Also, in tort actions, the passwords might be "discoverable" or subject to suboena.
I have found one possible work around. The autosave process does seem at first glance to be honoring the Time Machine Options to exclude specified directory hierarchies.
First a scary description of the problem. I had a generically created file (from command line: find . >my_dir/junk). From the command line I did: srm -mv my_dir/junk. I then looked in /.MobileBackups/Computer/2011-08-16-164420/Volume/[path2my_dir] and saw that a _new_ directory had been created there at 153100 holding the file 'junk' listed with it's original date of creation and fully viewable as a text file.
None of the other contents of my own my_dir were listed there.
(Further exploration showed that when changes were made by moving files, lion created in the backup area, empty directories bearing the names of those files. I expect, but didn't test, that renaming files would similarly cause preservation of the old names.)
The horrible truth is that the very act of removing, even srm removing a file _causes_ it to be saved in the auto save area!
There seems to be a a linking between the /.Mobilebackups and a mounted "volume" /Mobilebackups. Logged in as root, I was unable to remove write permissions, delete, rename, unmount either of those directories or their contents.
I base my prediction that Apple will not 'fix' this problem on the fact that they can't be this dumb. This is not a bug but a feature designed to preserve data that the user would prefer were not recoverable. I doubt Apple would effect such a design without good reason which I'd assume would be pressure from law enforcement. One obvious work around would be to encrypt disks and backups which Apple has made easy. However, be aware that the government has disallowed the development of encryption schemes for which they don't have a back door. Also, in tort actions, the passwords might be "discoverable" or subject to suboena.
I have found one possible work around. The autosave process does seem at first glance to be honoring the Time Machine Options to exclude specified directory hierarchies.
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As posted above, the command: tmutil disable local appears to turn off these saves, _in_this_session. I had used that a couple of days ago, but apparently when you restart or (?maybe login/out), the the saves are _by_default_ re-enabled -- which leaves me still worried about Apple's intensions for that design.
There is some good clarification of the implementation of these autosaves -- tho I am confused whether they are 'autosaves', 'local tm', or (less probably), 'versions'.
http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2011/07/mac-os-x-10-7.ars/18
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As posted above, the command: tmutil disablelocal appears to turn off these saves, _in_this_session. I had used that a couple of days ago, but apparently when you restart or (?maybe login/out), the the saves are _by_default_ re-enabled -- which leaves me still worried about Apple's intensions for that design.
There is some good clarification of the implementation of these autosaves -- tho I am confused whether they are 'autosaves', 'local tm', or (less probably), 'versions'.
http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2011/07/mac-os-x-10-7.ars/18
There is some good clarification of the implementation of these autosaves -- tho I am confused whether they are 'autosaves', 'local tm', or (less probably), 'versions'.
http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2011/07/mac-os-x-10-7.ars/18
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As posted above, the command: tmutil disablelocal appears to turn off these saves, _in_this_session. I had used that a couple of days ago, but apparently when you restart or (?maybe login/out), the the saves are _by_default_ re-enabled -- which leaves me still worried about Apple's intensions for that design.
There is some good clarification of the implementation of these autosaves -- tho I am confused whether they are 'autosaves', 'local tm', or (less probably), 'versions'.
http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2011/07/mac-os-x-10-7.ars/18
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Not sure what you mean by "possible work around" for a problem that you rightly say has no fix. In fact, after using Lion for a solid month, day in and out, I still don't see the problem in the first place.
Worrying about government penetration through back doors seems pretty silly at this point, as once iCloud hits and starts to use that mobilebackup dir structure, everything will pretty much have a front door.
Our beloved OS is about to become one big facebook, if it's not already. Security experts agree that online privacy does not really exist, so for this neophyte of secure systems, it seems to me that inline privacy is just the next thing to go using Apple computers.
c'est la vie, time to move on.
coocoo
Well, actually I agree. As Phil Zimmerman (the author of PGP) said (and this was back in the early 1990's), if you want to avoid prying eyes, keep your secret data pgp encrypted and on a computer that never attaches to the internet -- and with a modern operating system, even that wouldn't even be sufficient. And the safety of pgp is a subject of much debate.
DownGrading
I'm downgrading to SL. I hate Lion.
Why would Apple ever assume we don't want to control our saved files? I mean if you want that to happen cuz you are too incompetent to press command+S then fine turn it on, but give the rest of us back Save As and an normal saving system.
I'm downgrading to SL. I hate Lion.
Why would Apple ever assume we don't want to control our saved files? I mean if you want that to happen cuz you are too incompetent to press command+S then fine turn it on, but give the rest of us back Save As and an normal saving system.
Absolutely. Spread the word. I don't see how autosave/versions can be defended, and goodness knows people have tried.
Yep, I had to remove that tutorial because Lion (or the programmers who made it) had already anticipated the solution it offered.
Basically, you can log in as root and remove the folder or the individual Versions stored in it completely. Everything works fine for about 24 hours, then when Lion goes to do its 24 hr daily backup and notices you've messed with the database, labels it as 'bad' and makes a new one.
You can just delete the whole folder to remove all your versions at once. If you do this in TM and Mobile backups that should just about cover it. Alternatively, you could just put your HD in a blender and be done with it...
I think if you're worried about data privacy - and their are many legitimate reasons to be so without implying someone is engaged in criminal behaviour you should steer clear of OS X Lion. I suspect all the original Mac power users are going to be migrating to Linux/Unix machines in the years to come. I love Mac OS, but Lion has given me reason to distrust the company's intentions. I look forward to iCloud with similar reservations.
He didn't ask for resume, he asked for versions.MacBookPro13";12876441 said:
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Tell that to my 200 MB TIFF files.
Especially if they are opened over a slow VPN link... Beachballing for 5mins.