What OneDrive, Google Drive and Dropbox version history cannot do

First, what it does well

• It is somewhere else. If the computer breaks, the files are on a server. Octorium does not do this — its history is on the same computer.
• The same file on several devices. Home and office, laptop and phone.
• Sharing. One link hands it to someone else.

So if you use a cloud drive, keep using it. What follows is what is still missing on top of it.

What it cannot do — seven points

The unit of history

One file at a time. Even if the deck, the report and the sheet all changed together on the same afternoon, you cannot go back to "the folder as it was that afternoon"; you pick a version for each file separately. Octorium’s unit is one working folder.

How long, and how many

Google Drive keeps 30 days or the latest 100 versions (except those marked "Keep forever"; Google help, checked 2026-10-28). Dropbox keeps 30 days on Basic and Plus, 180 days on Professional and Business, and 365 days on the plans above (Dropbox help, checked 2026-10-28). Personal OneDrive is said to keep about the latest 25 (a Microsoft answer, checked 2026-10-28; it varies by plan and settings). Last quarter’s version is usually not there. Octorium’s history is on this computer and has no time limit.

What changed

No answer. The version list shows only a time and a size, so to learn in which version that slide disappeared you open them one by one. Octorium reads inside Word, PowerPoint and Excel files and explains in one sentence, such as "Added a ‘Risks’ section". It is at the level of slide titles, headings and sheet names, not a sentence-by-sentence red-and-green comparison.

Going back

One file at a time, by overwriting the existing file. If after going back you think "no, the earlier one was better", you go back to the version list again. Octorium returns the whole folder or one file, and going back is itself kept as a new entry, so going back can be undone.

Where the file has to be

In the cloud, without exception. For work where documents cannot sit on an outside server — legal, accounting, research, the public sector — it is not an option from the start. Octorium’s recording, comparing and going back all happen on this computer, and what leaves it is a few hundred bytes of titles and counts, only for a description.

Marking the version that went out

There is none. To find "the version we sent the client" later, you have to remember the time. Octorium puts labels such as Sent to client and Presented on a moment, and you find them with Search for what you remember.

What appears in your folder

A sync folder, and conflict copies ("…’s conflicted copy"). Octorium creates no files in your folder at all.

So how do you use them

The two do not compete. A cloud drive keeps files somewhere else and shares them; Octorium remembers, explains and returns the history of what you did on this computer. You can hand Octorium a working folder that sits inside a cloud drive’s sync folder — Octorium creates nothing in it, so nothing gets mixed into the sync.

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