Withdraw a non-changing edit from the version list in Google Docs?

Question

If you hit a key by chance while reading an old and outdated doc, it is not nice to have changed the latest work version to the date of the day. Some people will look out for guides by their version date.

How can I withdraw an edit that had no change in Google Docs so that nothing is shown about the visit in the version list?

Answer 1

Unfortunately, you cannot. All you can do is to try to avoid the situation.

Typical Workarounds

Since a document you own will always open in edit mode, here are some approaches people employ alone or together:

• Immediately switch to view mode after opening a document
• Make a copy of the source document and open that copy.
• Use an alternate Google account with view only permissions to open those docs for reading.
• Download a copy of the document and open that downloaded version.
• If the document has public view only permissions, open the document in an incognito tab without logging in.

Takeaway

The basic takeaway is that if user has edit privileges on a doc, user should never open the original doc if it is important to preserve the last edited time stamp.