
OS X Mountain Lion: Data Loss via 'Save As' - ingve
http://macperformanceguide.com/MountainLion-SaveAs-data-destruction.html
======
crazygringo
My biggest problem is that _Apple is not explaining these changes_.

With the original Save/Save As, the concept was easy to understand after
someone took 30 sec to explain it to you. You knew exactly what was happening.

But with Apple's new changes, Apple has made autosave and versions the new
paradigm (awesome), but they've done a terrible job at explaining how to do
anything _but_ that.

How do I edit something and then save that edit as a new document without
affecting the original? If I copy a file, does the whole version history get
copied too? What if I send it to someone? What if I want to delete the version
history period? What if I want to "duplicate" a file but not save it anywhere,
because I just want to mess around with changes for a while?

I've been using Lion since it came out, and I don't really know the correct
answers to any of those questions.

~~~
X-Istence
The version history is stored by the file system and not by the file itself.
If you copy the document you don't store any of the version history and you
can't revert (from my experience).

Also, if you send the file to someone they get the latest changes, they don't
get any history... the history is snapshots made by the OS much like Time
Machine does for backups, except it is done every so often automatically (auto
save) and not to an external drive.

The only real cock-up is the Save As. Save As should save the new file, and
revert the old file back to what it originally was (the last time I explicitly
saved, not the spot that auto save last saved).

If you want to modify a copy of the file, before you start your modifications
you simply choose File -> Duplicate and it opens the same document but with a
different name. When you save that one it will have an entirely new history
associated with it.

The fact that it is a file system feature that is baked into the OS means that
all apps can take advantage of it if they want and the overhead is small. It
also means that apps no longer need to keep notes about what modifications
were done to what, instead being able to rely on the auto save feature. The
other nice thing is that since it is not part of the document and is outside
of it, data leakage is much less of an issue than with other file formats such
as Microsoft Word where recovering previous text is rather simple and can lead
to data leaking that you wouldn't want leaking.

~~~
ktizo
_If you want to modify a copy of the file, before you start your modifications
you simply choose File - > Duplicate and it opens the same document but with a
different name._

What if you only decide that you want to save as a different file after you
are half way through your modifications?

~~~
jkestner
When you choose Duplicate on an edited file, you're given the option to
Duplicate and Revert the original file. Handy.

~~~
rsfinn
That's how it worked in Lion, but Mountain Lion behaves differently -- you get
the duplicate with its file name selected, so you can rename it, but the
original stays modified unless you think to immediately pick "Revert to last
saved version".

I actually liked the Lion behavior better. (Now I wish I'd had the chance to
try out the Mountain Lion beta before release, so I could have filed a bug for
this.) That's what we get for everyone complaining about the lack of "Save
As"...

------
Groxx
Yeah, I noticed this one too, when cropping a picture and saving it as a new
file (in Preview). Both the original and the new one were cropped. A moment of
panic later, and I found the revert option in Preview, but _only_ because I
knew it existed.

Totally. 100%. Undesirable. I did not _Save_. I saved to a _new file_. The
only option now appears to be duplicating before editing (bad) or hoping the
application has an 'export' option which sidesteps this (also bad - export
typically presents far more options than save-as).

~~~
kalleboo
> duplicating before editing (bad)

Why is this bad?

edit: Why are people downvoting me for asking this question? I'm genuinely
curious.

~~~
Groxx
Because it's a horrible UX paradigm to require. If 'Save As...' had never
existed, it wouldn't be unreasonable, but it is (was) a reasonable behavior
that every other system I'm aware of has maintained.

This passive versioning thing is quite nice in some aspects, but it's very
unknown with most people I've seen. They see a file changed, they assume it's
stuck like that now and the original is gone forever. Why would they expect
otherwise? Their unsaved file gave no indication of being saved. Every
application they open it in, and everyone they email it to, will only get the
most-recent version. Even the file-system doesn't tell you when you have
multiple versions of something.

~~~
kalleboo
I see it as part of the iOSification of OS X, to appeal to iPad/iPhone halo
converts. My phone has never asked me if I want to "Save changes".

~~~
Groxx
I like the feature, to be clear. I just think it's horribly executed, and the
education side has been even worse.

The problem is that they took something. Then they changed it, giving it
multiple nearly-invisible modes it can be in, which changes from application
to application (not all have a 'revert' option, even for versioned files).
Then they didn't tell anyone.

For instance. I just cropped this file. How do I know the original still
exists? <http://cl.ly/image/2L2X0x042W0N>

Here, I opened it in another application. Are there multiple versions?
<http://cl.ly/image/3Y1m3C2r1r2f>

What about in the File menu? <http://cl.ly/image/0F2o2H2i3Z2f>

Finder? <http://cl.ly/image/1C0S3z3Z0q30> or <http://cl.ly/image/463p0O1I3q1C>
or <http://cl.ly/image/1F191E3b3U1W> ?

(edit) Oh, cool - there's a "Versions" column. Maybe that has it:
<http://cl.ly/image/2703273U3z2U>

This is _bad_.

~~~
thatjoshguy
Always assume that every change you make is saved automatically, much like
cutting down a physical photo.

If you still want the original photo, and another cut down version, you would
use a photo copier to Duplicate the original, then cut the copy.

~~~
Groxx
"Always assume that every change you make is saved automatically" - You must
have had a hard time dealing with computers until now :)

The real-world analogy makes sense, but it doesn't fit with how things _have_
behaved. This is likely an improvement overall, but it's creating a period of
upheaval and damage to people's property where better notification of the
changes would make it a non-issue.

To modify and drag out the analogy to absurdity: say you previously made
cropped photos by photocopying with a white rectangle mask revealing only the
portions you wanted duplicated. Now, suddenly, you find that photocopying with
the mask in place _crops your original photo_ , without telling you. Nested a
layer deep in the photocopier's menu is an option to undo the changes to your
original.

I claim this is fine... if and only if the photocopier tells you of this
before or immediately after, so you know to copy the whole thing first, and
then cut, or use the 'revert' option. In a couple years that may be
unnecessary, but not right now.

------
thought_alarm
Or how about this one: you're editing an existing document and you wish to
preserve the original by using "Save As" to create a duplicate when you finish
editing, except at some point you hit "Command S" by accident or by reflex and
you've now clobbered your original, without warning, and there's no previous
version to restore.

That one's been around for 28 years, and was finally fixed in Lion and
Mountain Lion.

The "Save As" command has always been dangerous and ridiculous in the way it's
typically used for editing and then saving duplicates. Lion finally gives you
better and more safer options, but if you're not willing to learn what those
are and how it works, if you're hell bent on continuting to do it the old way,
then you're not going to like it and you're going to continue to risk data
loss like you have for the last 30 years.

I, for one, love the way it works. Yes, I had to sligtly change my workflow
but it's change absolutely for the better.

~~~
cheald
I'm confused. All it does is make the "bad" behavior the default, but give you
the option to revert it if the original file exists somewhere on disk? That's
an improvement?

Versioning (and allowing reverts) is awesome, but changing a decades-old idiom
to something that suddenly destroys data is...well, scary, to say the least.

Edit: Someone further down the thread suggested that the function be renamed
to "Duplicate and Save". That would totally fix the problem - this is a new
interaction mechanism, totally different from what we've all been training on
for the _last thirty years_ , and it needs a new name. The feature itself is
fine, but hijacking an existing operation's name for it is not cool. It
violates the principle of least surprise.

~~~
mechanical_fish
I'm not sure there was a way to introduce auto-save while maintaining the
"principle of least surprise". I'm astonished, myself. I figured that, thirty
years from now, we'd still be losing changes to periodic crashes of unsaved
documents rather than force any customer to alter a decades-old workflow.

The problem with "Duplicate and Save" is that it implies that saving is an
action that you can take, rather than something which has already happened. As
arrrg said, that's not true: in Lion apps, every document which has a name is
always saved. There is no longer a state of "changed but not saved".

Change the label to "Duplicate and Save" and us old folks, trained for thirty
years to be constantly seeking and pressing "Save" lest we lose everything,
will be complaining that there's no way to "Save" without also "Duplicating".
Which would not promote understanding, either.

Don't worry, if you and the OP miss the old world of unsaved documents you can
always find some old-school applications that preserve the old behavior. Join
us Emacs users in the land of hoary UX paradigms! ;)

~~~
cheald
Sure, you can have auto-save without surprising the user. Auto-save to
something that isn't the file they opened, and the commit those changes when
they invoke "save". The UI itself can show whatever the latest version it has
(and offer nifty things like "compare with what's saved"), but the file itself
isn't written until the user asks it to be.

I'm not sure what word processing software you've been using for the past
decade, but periodic backups and automatic restoration is more or less the
norm, now. Heck, even my code editor persists unsaved buffers between
sessions.

I think the last time I lost unsaved work in a due to a program crash was
probably last millennium. That's the root of my surprise here; there are
proven solutions that don't break existing workflows. Why did Apple decide to
break them now?

------
_delirium
Oh man, that is seriously broken. I save-as in Preview all the time when
cropping or color-adjusting photos, and this could've produced a very bad day
if I had upgraded to Mountain Lion and kept doing that, unwittingly
overwriting all my originals. (I haven't upgraded yet, partly to let things
like this be come to light before I dive in.)

~~~
snowwrestler
It doesn't overwrite all your originals because files are versioned in
Mountain Lion. If you accidentally save changes to your original that you
don't want, you can just revert to a previous version.

I used to do what you describe--open the original, make changes, then Save As.
Until I accidentally hit Save instead of Save As. Goodbye original.

Now when I want to work off an original I make a copy of it first in the
filesystem, then open the copy with the application (Photoshop usually). Since
I never open the original with the app, I can't screw it up. I don't have
Mountain Lion yet but the "Duplicate" functionality sounds like it will work
for me.

~~~
rogerchucker
In Mountain Lion, you don't need to accidentally save changes to original.. it
automatically does when you hit Save As (which shows up when holding the
Option key). And that is where this becomes bloody annoying. It means every
time I do a Save As, I have to revert the "original" file to its "original
version". That's idiotic.

------
kalleboo
In Lion, Apple changed the File model completely (everything is saved
automatically by default. you no longer have any "in-flight" changes that
aren't saved), but they haven't properly educated the users, causing people to
assume it's "broken".

With the new model, if you want to edit a copy of a file instead of the
original file, you need to Duplicate _first_. I've been bit by this a few
times as well, since it's hard to break 20 years of habit, but from an outside
perspective I think the new model is less technical and could be more
intuitive to new users (real life has no equivalent to "unsaved changes").

~~~
revelation
Indeed, real life has no equivalent to "unsaved changes". And it sucks.

Thats why a smart entrepeneur developed the eraser.

~~~
kalleboo
And why OS X Lion/ML has Versions and Time Machine

~~~
revelation
That is not an eraser, thats making a copy of your current work every minute,
try something new, and if you don't like it, stop what you're doing and
retrieve the old one from the filing cabinet.

So now every program needs an infinite, crash and restart resistant, fine
grained revert option.

I applaud Apple for their braveness in changing such a core functionality, but
I don't want to imagine the trouble this brings when accessing data on network
shares (or even the lifespan of your SSD cells).

~~~
kalleboo
> So now every program needs an infinite, crash and restart resistant, fine
> grained revert option.

Yeah, which is why Apple added that in Lion so anything using NSDocument get
it for free <http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4753>

~~~
prodigal_erik
Interesting. So they didn't really take away "save as" snapshots, just the
ability to name them and get to them through the filesystem.

------
CrLf
Versions has been the single "feature" preventing me from upgrading to Lion,
and it makes me sad that things haven't gotten any better in Mountain Lion.

I want to be in control of what I save, when I save it and IF I want to save
it.

Versions would be a nice feature if they worked as a background safeguard and
not as the main way of persisting changes. Many times I open files to try
stuff out, and I DO NOT want anything saved. With images, I end up doing this
much more often than actually making changes I want to keep.

I think this whole feature is a sure way of losing data. Have they fixed how
versions work with non-HFS+ filesystems yet? The last time I checked, no
versions were saved in this case, but the system kept persisting your changes
immediately: you edit a photo, make some changes, decide you don't want them
and... too late, no way to revert to your original version.

Like someone else already mentioned in another comment, I'm about this close
of installing Windows 7 in both my Macs. This is no way for a proper OS to
behave and this whole "this is the way of the future, just keep up with the
program" blind fanboyism is making me sick.

------
kirillzubovsky
I honestly don't see why people are so upset. I think the way saving is
implemented in MLion is fantastic. Instead of relying on old standards, the
engineers are looking ahead of the time.

"Normal", non-tech people who aren't obsessed with technology, will find this
feature amazing. Actually, let me correct myself - they won't notice this
feature, and that's the key.

Save As was a hack, which worked for people who knew about it, but was a total
clusterflack for normal users. Normal users rarely revert to old copies and if
you really want a duplicate of a file, well, you can always have a
"duplicate", which is an available feature.

Using the OSX in this way will be a more pleasant experience, going forward. I
am not saying this because I love Apple's design, I am saying this because
I've seen this countless times while helping my family with their computer
issues.

~~~
lotharbot
> _"Instead of relying on old standards, the engineers are looking ahead"_

There's nothing wrong with new standards. This might in fact be an excellent
way to do things.

The problem is giving new, completely different standards the same name as old
standards. "Normal" non-tech people would be just fine with this feature if
you named it something different like "save and duplicate" -- and tech people
wouldn't be caught off guard by the system _misusing common tech terminology_
to mean something totally different.

------
0x0
I cannot believe how the Apple engineers implemented this feature, thinking
this makes sense???

    
    
      switch (menuEvent) {
        case FILE_SAVE_AS:
           NSString *newFileName = prompt_for_saveas_name();
           [document writeToFile:originalFileName];
           [document writeToFile:newFileName];
    

?!?

~~~
kalleboo
Files are always saved automatically in Lion/Mountain Lion. It's more like
this

-(void)dataChanged { [document writeToFile:fileName]; }
    
    
      switch (menuEvent) {
        case FILE_SAVE_AS:
           NSDocument newDocument = [initWithDocument:oldDocument]
           [newDocument writeToFile:newFileName];
    

It would be wrong for "Save As" to suddenly unsave your changes.

~~~
0x0
They are even listing the return of "Save as" on the "new features" page:

<http://www.apple.com/osx/whats-new/features.html>

Quoting:

    
    
      Keyboard shortcut for Save As
      Use Command-Shift-Option-S to save a document using a different name and location.
    

It does not say "Use Command-Shift-Option-S to save a document using a
different name and location and also overwrite the existing document", even
though that's exactly what it does!!!

Crazy!

Edit: You're right, I saved a file.txt from TextEdit, then cat'ed it from a
Terminal, then edited it even without trying to save or duplicate or save as;
in fact the TextEdit window still shows "File1.txt - edited", but cat shows
the new contents.

They shouldn't have brought back "save as" at all if this is they way they are
going to handle things, much less list it as a killer feature of 10.8.

~~~
kalleboo
Did you not read what I wrote? OS X no longer has a concept of "Unsaved
changes". It's always saving your file. You write in a new sentence, it saves
it (virtually) instantly. The original file was already overwritten when you
selected "Save As".

The new "Save As" just makes the old "Duplicate" more handy. I agree it's a
poor choice of name, they should have kept it named "Duplicate".

~~~
0x0
Yeah, after reading your post twice and confirming with cat in the terminal it
sort-of makes sense.

They still shouldn't list "Save as..." as a new feature, because it sounds
like they made it work like every other OS.

 __Also, the textedit window is extremely deceiving when it shows "file1.txt -
edited" -- when in fact the file has already been committed to the
filesystem!! __

~~~
kalleboo
Yeah I also don't get what the significance of "edited" is supposed to be, it
just reinforces the image of the model not having changed.

~~~
arrrg
It shows you that you changed the document since either opening it or creating
a version. That is useful information.

~~~
0x0
On every other system I've used, such a message would imply the file has been
edited since the last _save_.

~~~
arrrg
I don’t think you quite understand. There is _no_ last saved. Everything is
always instantly saved.

------
pooriaazimi
They should add a third (or fourth?) option: "Move changes since last opening
to a duplicated file and revert this file"

It's long and would look ugly, so they'll never implement it. But they should.

(I'm not a pro git user, and don't use `stash`, but I think what I described
is like `stash`ing changes, checking out into a new branch, `stash pop` and
then `commit`ing...)

~~~
rb12345
As Mountain Lion effectively commits all changes to the current branch
automatically, the Git equivalent would be:

    
    
      git branch new-branch
      git reset -hard <startpoint>
    

which is effectively what people are having to do in Mountain Lion by hand.
The difference is that Git users expect that and know how to do it, unlike
your average new Mountain Lion user coming from OS X 10.6 or Windows.

------
jaylevitt
I think we're all conflating "worst case" with "common case" of Save As and
Duplicate.

In the worst case, the traditional filesystem behavior could lose your data if
you accidentally hit "Save" instead of "Save As". In the common case, it let
you save off new versions without affecting your existing version.

The (Mountain) Lion paradigm removes the worst case; you can always revert and
recover. But the behavior of the common case gives the appearance of lost
data, and violates both Principle Of Least Surprise and Do What I Mean.

~~~
psychotik
POLS = ? DWIM = ?

~~~
DanBC
Principle of Least Surprise
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_surprise>)

Do What I Mean (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DWIM>)

------
robomartin
I am trying to resist the urge to call Mountain Lion "Mountain 'O crap"

If Microsoft did this they'd be eviscerated crucified.

iOS Developer and Mac user here (as well as Windows).

The madness must stop. I have a feeling Steve will be missed more and more as
the years pass.

~~~
kalleboo
I did some googling and it seems like Windows 8 Metro apps might have
similarly neutered file handling. Has anyone tried it out and can report?

~~~
brudgers
My understanding is that Metro tends to sandbox an apps data in a way
analogous to that of a mobile OS. I believe the intent is to prevent one Metro
app from overwriting another apps data or corrupting the file system.

------
pat2man
Based on how everything else works it would be simple enough for the "Save As"
to basically "Duplicate and Save." You press it, give it a file name and you
how have two windows. Don't know why Apple didn't do it this way.

~~~
kalleboo
That _is_ how it works now. When he says "it silently saves the original
file", he's missing the point that OS X is _always_ saving your files.

In Lion/ML, if you create a new file, Save it with a name, and afterwards add
some text and then close the window, it doesn't prompt you to "save changes",
since it's always saving changes. In a model like that, there's no reason for
"Save As" to suddenly not save changes in the original window.

~~~
Schlaefer
In ML you can set "Ask to keep changes when closing documents" in the system
preferences.

Then OS X is not supposed to overwrite your file without your consent, but it
does in this case.

~~~
snowwrestler
Does it? The linked blog post makes no mention of the preference setting you
describe, so the author was probably running without that setting (which is
off by default). I'll have to try that when I upgrade to ML next week.

~~~
Schlaefer
Yes, I tested it.

Before displaying the Save As dialog for naming your new file a write to the
original takes place. They probably just do a copy and rename file operation
afterwards.

Interesting fact: if you abort the Save As dialog and try to close the
original they ask you to "Revert Changes".

------
snowwrestler
The big question here is data loss, which the article alleges but does not
really prove. The author basically says "I don't understand versions, so I
don't trust them."

Many folks have pointed out that since Mountain Lion auto-saves all file
versions, there actually is not any data loss. Just revert the file.

However, my reading of the Apple support document [1] is that versions are
discarded over time. It says:

> OS X Lion manages the version history of a document, keeping hourly versions
> for a day, daily versions for a month, and weekly versions for all previous
> months.

This would seem to indicate that if you downloaded a file from your camera,
then made changes that were autosaved to the original file, the original
version would be discarded after 24 hours had passed--the several "hourly"
versions reduced to a single "daily" version.

If that is true, it is really problematic. If version control software is to
be trusted, I think it should not discard versions.

[1] <http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4753>

------
jopt
That's insane; it must be a bug. Perhaps they should just stick with the new
document model. We'd have to relearn, but a clean break is better than this
nonsense.

------
ams6110
_I dislike auto-versioning as I have no control over the process or even an
understanding of the space used_

In this era of cheap terabyte-scale storage, concern about the space used for
versions of a document is NOT something that should occupy your mind.

~~~
whatusername
Because my Mac Book Air has terabytes of free space??

~~~
glhaynes
The files are chunked and only the pieces that have changed are stored across
versions. In all but the most corner of corner cases, the extra storage used
is negligible. (This same chunking also helps iCloud keep iCloud-stored files
in sync across devices without using a lot of bandwidth or being out-of-sync
for as long during the upload/download process.)

------
PaulHoule
Mountain Lion made me greatful for bootcamp. I've resolved to use my Mac Mini
as a Win 7 machine from here on out.

------
eyko
Is "duplicate, then save" common sense enough?

~~~
protomyth
If we were starting without multiple years of experience using "Save As". The
problem is a workflow that was expressly used by people to not mess up the
original now messes up the original. This is so not good. If we were using
OpenVMS (versioning of files is obvious), but it is really a bad design
decision. Bringing auto saves to the Mac in the way they did is foolish.

~~~
kalleboo
Anyone coming from an iPad or iPhone has no experience of "Save As". These are
the users Apple are now targeting. Like it or not.

~~~
protomyth
Anyone coming from the iPad has no experience with the File menu, and Mac
users have years of experience with it. Learning a new interface requires
learning some new customs.

This is a huge issue with creation in iOS. It is not a form factor or input
problem. It is this strange assumption the every action I do is correct and
needs to be preserved. I cannot know that my rewrites will be good before I
attempt them. Reverting on iOS is a huge pain if its even possible at all.

~~~
kalleboo
I wonder if/when Apple will bring Versions to iOS. It seems iCloud on OS X
supports it at least.

------
madrona
Looks like it's not just SaaS that is susceptible to major feature disruption.

------
brudgers
If Steve were here, he'd say "Just Save Your Files Differently."

------
akmiller
This really messes with the way I work with images. I'll open base prototypes
and start playing with changes not knowing at that point if I'll want to save
them or not. If I end up keeping them, at that point I'd save as a new file.
Seems like auto-save should be app level preferences that should be able to be
turned off. I don't want to duplicate a file every time I want to do some
experimentation!

~~~
ricardobeat
> I don't want to duplicate a file every time I want to do some
> experimentation!

But you want to keep it "in memory" while you experiment with it. The new
model is more natural: if you paint on a canvas, it's painted. If you want to
experiment, use the magical canvas duplicator and work on that copy, then just
throw it away if you don't want to keep it.

That said, they shouldn't have brought Save As back. Imposing a new model is
already upsetting, making old functionality behave differently is terrible.

------
andrewfelix
For the layman I understand this kind of functionality. But as a creative who
is constantly saving multiple modified files for clients, this is awful. I'm
assuming/hoping Adobe will not integrate this 'feature'.

Apple should have at least changed the semantics. The term 'Save as' is
understood by the majority of users to be what it has been for the last couple
of decades.

------
ewalk153
It looks like others have found a work-around by leveraging the duplicate
feature another other keyboard shortcuts but this it quite annoying.

[http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-57481986-263/apple-
retu...](http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-57481986-263/apple-returns-save-
as-to-mountain-lion/)

------
zdw
The workflow I've always used:

    
    
       Open file > Save with new filename > Change new file > Save changes
    

10.7/10.8 just removes the last step. The only people having issues are those
that confuse the middle two steps.

Or, in unix parlance, you cp then vi. Not the other way around.

~~~
_delirium
In vi, though, what I usually do is open a file first, and then if I want to
'save as', I do ':w newfile'. I don't have to decide before I open the file if
I want to duplicate it or not, and it would be very unexpected behavior for
':w newfile' to also modify the original file.

------
thomas-st
defaults write -g ApplePersistence -bool no

Problem solved.

~~~
CrLf
What exactly happens when you do this? Do we get the old (sane, pre-Lion)
behavior back, or does it just disable versions leaving everything the same
(which is worse)?

~~~
thomas-st
You get the pre-Lion behavior back.

For TextEdit you additionally have to disable autosave so you don't get error
messages:

defaults write -app textedit AutosavingDelay -int 0

------
rbanffy
Isn't this what Time Machine (or git, or svn, or cvs) is for?

------
kapuzineralex
"Save as" overwrites the original file as well like "Save" does? OMGWTF

------
billni
good

------
rogerchucker
Unfuckingbelievable - which einstein inside one infinite loop came up with
this gem?

------
rjzzleep
welcome to osx the only thing osx has over other platforms is the ease to
create good looking gui applications. i do miss it every now and then. but not
really that often.

