Limit ammount of versions on document level

Suggest an idea
1

As a: Sketch Account Admin
I want to: Set how I want to save versions of document on global and (overwrite) document level
so I can: 1. Have more control over versioning, and 2. minimize storage data being occupied by versioning

Details:
I would like to set the ammount of versions I want to keep by date. So something like: Delete versions that are at least 6 months older than the most current version.

A lot of my storage data is being used by versioning. Now I often get an e-mail with “your storage is full”, but there’s no simple way to delete the many versions for the many documents I have.

This will also give creators more control on when a document is considered ‘out of date’ and not usable for reference or backups anymore.

2

This is similar to my request and another sensible requirement for document/version management in the Sketch cloud.

At the moment, you can only proceed in such a way that you MUST DELETE EVERY SINGLE VERSION that you no longer need. This is quite time-consuming if you have to delete hundreds of versions, as I did some time ago. I miss some kind of batch processing or a setting option like you suggest.

4

Hi @wendeavontuur,

Welcome to the Forum, it’s great to have you here. I understand your concern and we’ve worked with the two things mentioned in mind: having more control over versioning and minimize storage. Here’s what’s on the implementation and of course, we’re all for improvement, so if you see something off, please share and we’ll look into it.

1- Having more control over versioning
Starting on version 99.5 all your changes are automatically and constantly saved to your Workspace. To create a version, you’ll need to do it manually. For instance, if you work on a file over a couple of hours and create no versions, Sketch will create at least one version automatically. Before version 99.5, every time you hit ⌘S created a new, standalone version, which did add to the storage quota.

This current saving method can be a replacement for overwriting, since no version is created unless you A) create it manually or B) reach a threshold of many changes and Sketch creates it for you.

2- Minimize storage occupied by versioning
Over time, Sketch versions consolidate, so you’ll have more newer versions and less older versions. This is broadly how it works:

  • After day 1, we keep one version per hour
  • After week 1, we keep 1 version per day
  • After month 1, we keep 1 version per week
  • After year 1, we keep 1 version per month.

Example: if you worked on a file and created 10 versions in the same week, those 10 versions will become 1 after 30 days.

There are some exceptions: we never delete starred versions, versions that have a description, an active collaboration version or the very first version of any document.

There are, of course, improvements to be done. Like you and @Xhaust mention, you can delete versions, but this is done manually and can become time consuming. We’re aware of this and are looking for ways to improve it.

However, if you see something’s off or if a document has very old versions that should have been consolidated by now, please let us know and we’ll look into it.

And of course, we’d love to hear your feedback on these features (autosaving and version consolidation)

2 Likes