Version history and restore

Sempere never overwrites a note. Each save adds a small encrypted file with what changed, so the note’s whole history is there to look at and to restore.

Browse versions

Open the note’s ⋯ menu ▸ Version History… (⇧⌘Y on the Mac).

• Saved versions (named checkpoints) and editing sessions are listed together, newest first. A session groups a run of autosaves and says how many saves it holds; open it to see each save.
• Each row says which device saved it (“This device” or “Device” and a short id) and what it is: Saved version, Edit or Snapshot. The newest is marked Current.

Tap a version to preview it. The preview is read-only, with page buttons for notes with several pages.

Restore

In the preview, tap Restore This Version and confirm. The note is set back to how it was then, and the restore itself is a new save: the newer versions stay in the history, so you can undo a restore by restoring a newer version.

Name a version

Before a big change, open ⋯ ▸ Save Version… (⌥⌘S), give it a name if you like (“Before the exam”), and confirm. Saved versions are never thinned away.

Thinning old autosaves

A note written in for months collects many autosaves. Once a day, Sempere removes autosaves older than Settings ▸ Backups & History ▸ Version History ▸ Thin Autosaves Older Than (30 days by default; 7 days to 1 year, or Never). It keeps every saved version, the last save of each editing session and the current version. The Thin Now section previews what would go before anything is removed: Thin versions older than 30 days… applies the setting now, and Thin everything except checkpoints… removes every autosave, including each session’s last one. With Sync Settings with This Vault on, every device that syncs the vault uses the same setting.

Thinning removes files from the vault. Your backups keep their copies.

From the CLI

sempere notes history "Week 3"               # restore points, oldest first
sempere notes history "Week 3" --sessions    # grouped like the app
sempere notes checkpoint "Week 3" --name "Before exam"
sempere notes restore "Week 3" --to 0001760… --dry-run
sempere export "Week 3" --format pdf --at 0001760… --out week3-then.pdf

--to and --at take a revision name from history (a unique prefix of six or more characters is enough).