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Snapshots & Recovery

Snapshots let you save specific points in your diagram’s history and restore to them later. This is different from the automatic undo history — snapshots are named, persistent, and survive browser refreshes.

When to Use Snapshots

Section titled “When to Use Snapshots”
  • Before major changes: Save before an AI rewrite, large import, or significant restructure
  • Experimentation: Create a baseline before trying different approaches
  • Collaboration: Mark completed states before handing off to others
  • Recovery: Restore a known-good state if something goes wrong

Creating a Snapshot

Section titled “Creating a Snapshot”
  1. Open the Snapshots Panel from the toolbar or Studio rail
  2. Enter a name in the version name field
  3. Click the save button

The snapshot saves the current state including all nodes, edges, and their properties.

Viewing Snapshots

Section titled “Viewing Snapshots”

The Snapshots Panel shows two sections:

Named Versions

Section titled “Named Versions”

Snapshots you created manually with custom names. These are persistent and won’t be automatically deleted.

Autosaved Checkpoints

Section titled “Autosaved Checkpoints”

Automatic snapshots created by the system:

  • Before major operations like imports or AI generations
  • At regular intervals during editing sessions
  • These help you recover from unexpected issues

Restoring a Snapshot

Section titled “Restoring a Snapshot”
  1. Find the snapshot in the Snapshots Panel
  2. Click the restore button on the card
  3. The diagram reverts to that snapshot’s state
  4. You can continue editing from there

Restoring does not delete other snapshots — you can always restore a different one later.

Comparing with Current State

Section titled “Comparing with Current State”
  1. Find the snapshot you want to compare
  2. Click the compare button
  3. The diagram enters compare mode showing:
    • Nodes that were added (green)
    • Nodes that were removed (red)
    • Nodes that were modified (yellow)
  4. Exit compare mode to continue editing

See Diagram Diff & Compare for more on compare mode.

Deleting Snapshots

Section titled “Deleting Snapshots”
  • Click the delete button on a snapshot card to remove it
  • Autosaved checkpoints can be deleted to clean up the list
  • Deleted snapshots cannot be recovered

Best Practices

Section titled “Best Practices”
  1. Name snapshots meaningfully: “Before AI rewrite v2” is better than “Version 2”
  2. Create before risky operations: Always snapshot before import, AI generation, or batch edits
  3. Use autosaved checkpoints: They’re helpful fallbacks but don’t rely on them alone
  4. Clean up old snapshots: Delete outdated snapshots to keep the list manageable
Section titled “Related Pages”