Version control for your notes — like Git, but invisible.
Every edit kept. Every change attributable. Restore the whole note, a single section, or one paragraph from eight months ago — without overwriting the version you are in now. Per-block diff, forever retention on Pro, attribution that distinguishes humans from AI agents. The CRDT engine that powers live editing also tracks every concurrent revision as a version of its own. Browse the 26 elements Knovya composes from to see how the editor cluster fits together.
Experiment 25 · The Time Machine
Pick a moment. See what changed. Restore the part you want.
A real note across eight versions, edited by you, a teammate, and an AI agent over six months. Click any version to preview it. Toggle compare to see the diff. Hover any block to bring just that piece back.
Preview · v6
Q3 OKRs — strategy memo
Showing v6 — by Hasan, 14 days ago.
Click any earlier version on the left to preview it.
Restored — saved as v9.
previous state preserved in history
Free keeps the
last 10 versions per note.
Pro & Team keep history
forever →
See Pro
Four pillars. Ten capabilities.
Capture, compare, revert, attribute. Every Knovya note carries the full set — the only thing your tier changes is how far back you can reach.
Pillar I Snapshot
2 capabilities 01
Continuous auto-save
A snapshot is taken on every save event — yours, a
teammate's, an AI agent's. Drafts, partial edits, mid-thought
saves. Nothing is lost between conscious checkpoints.
02
Named version
Mark a moment manually — v1.0 launch,
before refactor, investor copy. Named
versions stay distinct in the timeline and never roll off,
regardless of retention window.
Pillar II Diff
3 capabilities 03
Per-block diff
Knovya stores notes as blocks — paragraphs, headings,
callouts, code, tables. Diffs respect that structure, so you
see exactly which block changed, not a chaotic
line-level wash.
04
Side-by-side compare
Pick any two versions and view them in parallel — your
current state on one side, an earlier moment on the other.
Or switch to inline mode for word-level deltas.
05
Section-bounded view
Collapse the diff to a single heading and its descendants.
Useful when a note is long and you only want to know what
shifted under Phase 2.
Pillar III Restore
3 capabilities 06
Whole-note restore
One tap brings the entire past version forward as the new
current state. Standard undo, scaled to "eight months
ago".
07
Per-block restore
Hover any block in the diff and lift just that piece —
a paragraph you wrote in March, a callout you deleted last
week. The rest of your current note stays put.
08
Non-destructive by default
Restore creates a new version reflecting the
change. The state you restored from stays in history. The
state you came from stays in history. You can always
undo the undo.
Pillar IV Attribution
2 capabilities 09
Author of every change
You. A teammate. An AI agent — Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT,
or any MCP client. Each version
carries the actor that produced it, marked distinctly so a
model rewrite never gets confused with a human one.
10
Activity timeline · 29 actions
A full audit feed adjacent to the version graph: created,
edited, shared, archived, status-completed, version-restored,
and twenty-three more. Forensic when you need it,
quiet when you don't.
Most apps treat history as a safety net with a hole in it.
Eight months ago, you wrote a paragraph that nailed it. You replaced it with something cleaner. Now, looking at the new version, you'd give a lot to read the old one again.
The dominant tools say sorry. Notion's free tier holds seven days. Plus stretches that to thirty. Even Business stops at ninety — and when you finally find the right point in time, restore is whole-page only. There is no just bring back the second paragraph.
Knovya keeps every version forever on Pro, diffs at the block level, and restores at the block level. The old paragraph is still there. You can have it back without losing the new one.
- Notion Free
- 7 days · whole-page restore
- Notion Plus
- 30 days · whole-page restore
- Notion Business
- 90 days · whole-page restore
- Google Docs
- Forever · whole-doc restore (manual paragraph copy)
- Word
- Manual checkpoints · whatever you remembered to save
A fifty-year line of version control, brought home to your notes.
Every idea here comes from somewhere — Bell Labs, the Linux kernel, Google Docs. We didn't invent the discipline; we ported it to the place ranking and recovery were both missing.
- 1972Marc Rochkind — SCCS The first source code control system. Versioning meant storing every change as a delta, not a separate file. Bell Labs. Bell Labs · UNIX
- 1986Walter Tichy — RCS Reverse-delta encoding plus line-level diffs. The intellectual parent of every "what changed" view that came after. Purdue · open source
- 2005Linus Torvalds — Git Content-addressable, branch-cheap, distributed. Made it cheap to keep everything — and never overwrite history. Linux kernel · production
- 2014Google Docs — Revision History Autosave plus collaborative undo, with named-version moments. Brought version history out of the developer's terminal and into prose. Google · production system
- 2026Knovya Version History Per-block diff plus per-block restore. Forever retention on Pro. Author attribution that distinguishes humans from AI agents. Non-destructive by default. ★ Knovya · production
First of its kind
No other note app pairs forever retention with per-block restore.
Notion keeps days, not blocks. Obsidian Sync stretches to a year, but at the file level. Google Docs goes deep on time but stays shallow on granularity. Knovya is the only place where eight months of history meets one-paragraph precision.
Product Retention Granularity
Notion Free 7 days whole page
Notion Plus 30 days whole page
Notion Business 90 days whole page
Google Docs forever whole doc
Obsidian Sync — Standard 1 month file
Obsidian Sync — Plus 12 months file
Knovya Pro & Team
forever per-block
Four places it shows up — without ever getting in the way.
Version history lives in the rail when you want it, in the diff when you need it, in the activity feed when you ask for accountability, and in MCP when an agent asks for it on your behalf.
A sticky panel beside the editor. Every save adds a dot. Every dot lets you preview, compare, or restore — without leaving the document.
Pick any two versions. Knovya renders both in parallel — additions soft green, removals soft red, unchanged content stays calm. Hover any block to bring it forward.
A forensic feed of every action across every note — filtered by author, time, or kind. Useful for retros, audits, and the question of who changed this and why.
knovya_history agent-aware
When Claude or Cursor calls knovya_history, they
get the same timeline you see — with attribution that
includes the AI that wrote each version, so the loop closes
cleanly.
Version History composes with the rest of Group III.
19
Block Editor
22 block types. Per-block diff is only possible because the
editor is block-native.
20
Real-time
Same CRDT engine. Every concurrent edit becomes a tracked
version, conflict-free.
22
Share Notes
Public pages carry a public timeline — readers see how
a thought evolved.
26
Organization
Folder, tag, and metadata changes flow into the same activity
timeline as content edits.
A few honest answers.
How long is version history kept?
On Pro and Team, forever. Every snapshot stays available as long as the note exists, with no time-based expiry. Free keeps the last 10 versions per note — enough for everyday undo, while the upgrade path adds permanent history.
Can I restore just one block?
Yes. Open a past version, hover any block in the diff view, and choose Restore this block. The rest of your current note stays untouched. Per-block restore is only possible because the block editor is block-native — you can also restore an entire heading-bounded section, or the whole note.
Does version history cost extra storage against my plan?
No. Version history is included on every plan and does not count against your file storage quota. Knovya stores diffs efficiently — most edits cost a fraction of the original note size.
Can I see who changed what?
Every version is attributed — to you, a teammate, or an AI agent (Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT, or any MCP client). The activity timeline shows the actor, the timestamp, and a short summary across 29 distinct action types, from edits and shares to inferred status changes.
How does this differ from Notion's version history?
Notion gives you 7 days on Free, 30 on Plus, 90 on Business — and restore is whole-page only. Knovya keeps history forever on Pro and lets you restore individual blocks. Both auto-save, but only Knovya treats restore as a new version, not an overwrite.
Is version history available offline?
Yes — your most recent versions stay cached on the device. Older history fetches when you reconnect. The same CRDT engine that powers real-time collaboration ensures offline edits never lose a keystroke when they sync back.
Can I compare two versions side-by-side?
Yes. Pick any two versions in the timeline and Knovya renders an inline or side-by-side diff at the block level. Additions appear green, removals struck through, unchanged content stays calm. Hover a block in the diff to restore just that piece.
Can I delete history for sensitive notes?
Yes — end-to-end encrypted notes carry no server-readable history at all (the keys live with you). For non-encrypted notes, you can purge a single version or clear the entire history of a note from settings. Audit-trail entries persist for compliance unless your workspace policy clears them too.
Travel through your own notes.
Free keeps your last 10 versions — enough for daily undo. Pro keeps every version forever, with per-block restore on every note you'll ever write.
★ element 25 · Group III — Editor