One of the most useful features that Google Docs, Google Sheets and Google Slides provide is version history.
If you made unwanted changes to your original document, you can simply go through the past versions of your document and choose the one you want to restore.
Also, if you’ve shared your document with other people and you want to keep track of the changes they made, you can do so by viewing the revision history of that document.
Similarly, if someone has shared a document with you, this feature allows them to conveniently keep track of any changes you make, without you having to send them regular updates.
However, sometimes you might want to delete the revision history of your document.
For example, let’s say you want to share a document that previously contained confidential information that you don’t want anybody to see.
Even though you have deleted that information, any person you’ve shared the document with can simply view the previous version of the document.
Google Docs doesn’t allow you to delete the revision history of your document, but there is a way around this problem.
- You can simply make a copy of the version of the document that you want to share and rename the file.
- Since this is a completely new document, the previous versions of the document will not be visible.
Here are the step by step instructions
In this section, we will detail the steps for hiding a document’s revision history by making a copy of the final version and renaming the file.
Step 1: Open your Google Docs document.
Open up the Google Docs homepage in your browser (docs.google.com), then open the document that you want to make a copy of. All your previous documents will be located under ‘Recent documents.’
Step 2: Click on the File tab.
You can see this tab in the top left corner of your screen. It is the very first option in the toolbar. Click on it to open up the file menu.
Step 3: Click on ‘Make a copy.’
Click on the ‘Make a copy’ option in the File menu to create a copy of your document.
Step 4: Rename your document.
If you don’t want the people you share the document with to know that it is a copy, you can delete the ‘Copy of’ from the name of your document and keep the rest of the name. On the other hand, you can also change the entire name of the document.
The default location of your document is Google Drive. If you would like to add it to a particular folder, click on ‘My Drive’ and choose the folder.
Also, make sure to uncheck the ‘Share with the same people’ and ‘Copy comments and suggestions’ options if they are selected.
(Optional) Step 5: Share your document.
If you’re ready to share your document, you can do so now by clicking on the ‘Share’ option at the top right corner of the screen. Nobody will be able to see the history of the document.
Conclusion
And that’s how you can hide the revision history of your documents! Google Docs doesn’t allow you to delete the previous versions so this is a good workaround.
To recap what we covered in this article: go to the File tab and make a copy of your document. If you don’t want people to know that this is a copy, make sure to remove ‘Copy of’ from the title. Once you’ve made all the necessary changes, you’re good to share the document.