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Saved over a PowerPoint by mistake: finding yesterday’s version
You deleted slides and saved, or last night’s version was overwritten this morning. If the presentation is today, there is no time, so this starts with what is most likely to work.
Published October 28, 2026
1. If it is still open — Undo
Even after saving, Ctrl+Z (⌘Z on a Mac) works as long as you have not closed the file. Undo until the deleted slides are back, then use Save As. Starting and stopping the slide show does not clear the undo history.
2. PowerPoint’s AutoRecover
After an unexpected quit, a recovery list appears the next time you open PowerPoint. If it quit normally, see whether a file is left in `~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Powerpoint/Data/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery` (the location can differ between versions). For a file on OneDrive, File › Browse Version History works.
- In File › Info, if an AutoRecover copy is listed under "Manage Presentation" with its time, click it.
- If there is none, look in Manage Presentation › Recover Unsaved Presentations.
AutoRecover discards its copies the moment you press Save. When you look "after" the overwrite, it is often empty.
3. Where yesterday’s version might be
- Sent mail and messages: if you sent it to anyone yesterday, that attachment is yesterday’s version. This is where it is found most often.
- The Previous Versions tab on Windows: right-click the file › Properties › Previous Versions. Only there if File History was turned on.
- Time Machine on a Mac: if it was turned on, go to yesterday with Browse Time Machine Backups from the folder.
- OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox: the file’s Version history (Manage versions on Google). If there is an upload from yesterday, that is it.
- Another computer: if you work on it at home and at the office in turn, yesterday’s file may still be sitting on the other one.
4. Merging the two
Once you have the old version, it is usually quicker to "put today’s few slides back into yesterday’s file". Open the two side by side and move them with Reuse Slides (Windows) or by copying and pasting the slides. Choose Keep Source Formatting when you paste and the design stays intact.
How not to be here next time
If none of the above brought it back, that version is gone. A file keeps only its latest state, which is why people make one more copy before they press Save. That copy is the "deck_final.pptx" and "deck_FINAL_final.pptx" in your folder.
Octorium is a desktop app for Mac and Windows that does that job for you. Hand it the one folder you work in, save the way you always have, and each time the folder goes quiet for a moment (2 minutes by default) it records that moment. The entries are grouped under Today, Yesterday and the days of the week, each with its time, and from any line you can return the whole folder with Go back to this moment or a single file with Go back for this file only. Going back is recorded too, so going back can itself be undone.
- Nothing appears in your folder. The history is kept separately.
- Your files never leave this computer. Recording and going back both happen on this computer, and they work without the internet.
- 30 days free, no card, counted from the moment you press start in the app.
Install it from /en/download; going back is explained in the guide (/en/guide#restore).
For presentations there is one more thing. If you put a Bookmark on the moment you sent it to the client, with the Sent to client label, then days later, when someone says "I think the first version we sent was better", one label takes you back.