Find and restore the right email version with Stripo’s updated Version History

When a team works on an email, colleagues may edit different parts simultaneously or return to earlier drafts. To manage the review, you need to know who changed what and which version the team agreed to use. Stripo’s Version History update adds names, tags, and search to help you find reviewed drafts and earlier work you want to reuse. 

Why a saved history can still leave you searching

An email can have several saved versions from the same afternoon. You remember reviewing it but not exactly when. The date gets you to the right part of the history, where you still need to open the versions and find the one you checked.

Knowing who made a change gives you some context. If a colleague rewrote a paragraph, you can ask why before bringing the old text back. Their earlier draft might also contain something you want to use again, even if the current email has no errors.

Ways to preserve and recover a working version

You can keep a separate copy of an email once it passes review and continue editing the original. That gives you an editable backup with the content and design as they were at approval. It works as long as colleagues know which copy to use. After further rounds of review, someone needs to keep track of the files and their names.

Email editors with version history keep saved versions together, so you can return to earlier work without managing separate files. A history entry can show who saved the version and when, with a preview to check its contents before restoring it. Some editors also let you record why you restored a version. The export process varies; you may need to restore an older version before exporting it, making it the current draft first.

Some email service provider (ESP) editors automatically save versions at regular intervals. Restoring an earlier draft creates another entry in the history with the older content, while the other saved versions remain accessible. You can return to those later edits if you change your mind. This preserves both stages of the work within one email’s history.

Another approach is to save a named version when you reach the review stage. Some newer editors offer this in beta, alongside a filter for named versions and a comparison that highlights additions and deletions. For emails connected to automation, restoring and publishing can be separate actions; you can review the restored draft before making it the version used for future sends.

If your team reviews copy in a shared document, a document editor with named versions and a filter for them can preserve the wording that passed the review. You can find that text again among the smaller edits. The email’s design is stored elsewhere, though, and someone still needs to check that the email contains the approved copy.

What a useful recovery workflow needs

For a team review, you should be able to:

• see who edited the email and inspect the changes;
• identify the version that passed review, even if you weren’t involved;
• return to an email you can edit;
• keep the current draft when you want to reuse earlier work separately.

The last two points affect which approach you choose. Recovering a previous email design requires a saved email or access to the editor’s history. Before restoring it, you need to know whether the action will replace your current draft or create a new email.

How the Version History update supports this workflow in Stripo

Stripo already records edits in Version History. You can see who made changes and inspect previous versions before restoring them. Show Changes highlights what changed in the selected version.

The current update adds names, tags, and search to the saved history.

Names and tags

After reviewing an email, a manager could name that version “September promotion v2” and add a “checked” tag. Both appear in the history, so colleagues can recognize the reviewed draft when they return to it. The name can be edited later or removed without deleting the version itself.

Names and tags have different uses. A name identifies one version within that email’s history. A tag can appear on multiple versions, and a version can have multiple tags.

For example, your team could use “copy-approved” after reviewing the wording and “mobile-checked” after inspecting the mobile layout. A version with both tags would record that both checks had been completed. That is more specific than “checked,” which could mean something different for each colleague. For a design you want to discuss again, a tag such as “layout alternative” could describe why it was kept.

Search by name, tag, or date

You can then search for the name or tag when you need that version. The search also covers recorded descriptions of editing actions, so it can help you find changes you haven’t named or tagged.

If you remember the date, the calendar can limit the history to a single day or date range. Text and date filters work together. For example, searching for “copy-approved” during the week of a review returns versions with that matching text from the selected period.

Preview, restore, or reuse an earlier version

Once you’ve found a version, you can preview the email and decide how much of it you want to bring back.

If you want to return to the whole earlier email, restoring that version makes it the current draft. You can continue editing from there.

Instead, you may prefer an older introduction while keeping the newer images and dates. Restore as new creates a separate email/template from the selected version and leaves your current draft unchanged. You can copy the wording from that email into the current draft yourself; restoring a version does not merge it with later edits.

You can also export a selected historical version. Restoring a draft does not change an email already delivered to recipients.

What’s next

We plan to add version filters to commenting, sharing, and the editor’s top panel. These will let you switch between versions while reviewing feedback, sharing an email, or working in the editor.

Wrapping up

Choose a small set of tags and agree on what each one confirms. Decide who will name and tag the saved version when a review is complete before further editing begins. A colleague returning to the email will then have a specific reviewed version to look for.