How to Use Suggesting Mode in Google Docs (Track Changes Without Word)

Google Docs doesn’t have a button labeled “Track Changes.” People coming from Microsoft Word spend ten minutes hunting through menus before realizing the equivalent lives under a different name: Suggesting mode. Once you find it, the workflow is arguably cleaner than Word’s — every edit is color-coded, every change gets an accept/reject pair, and you never need to email a file back and forth.

This guide covers the full review cycle: switching modes, making tracked edits, leaving comments, accepting or rejecting changes one by one or in bulk, and the version history safety net for when something goes wrong.

Step 1: Switch to Suggesting Mode

Open any Google Doc and look at the top-right toolbar, just left of the Share button. You’ll see a small pencil icon. Click it and three options appear:

• Editing — the default. Everything you type replaces existing text immediately.
• Suggesting — your edits appear as colored suggestions that the document owner must approve or reject.
• Viewing — read-only. No edits, no suggestions.

Select Suggesting. The pencil icon changes to a speech-bubble-with-pencil icon, confirming the switch.

From this point, every insertion appears in a color assigned to you (different collaborators get different colors), every deletion shows as strikethrough text in the margin, and a sidebar entry is created for each change.

Step 2: Make Tracked Edits

With Suggesting active, edit the document normally. Here’s what happens for each type of change:

Inserting text. Type where you want the new words. They appear in your color with an underline, and a small marker appears in the right margin.

Deleting text. Select the text and press Delete or Backspace. The text turns strikethrough in your color and moves into the margin sidebar as a “deleted” suggestion.

Replacing text. Select existing text and type the replacement. The old text shows as strikethrough, the new text appears in your color beside it, and both are grouped as one suggestion in the sidebar.

Formatting changes. Select text, then change bold, italic, font size, or color. The formatting change registers as a suggestion too — the sidebar shows “Format change: bold” or similar.

Each suggestion gets a timestamp and your name, so in a multi-reviewer document you can see exactly who proposed what and when.

Step 3: Leave Comments Alongside Suggestions

Suggestions show what to change; comments explain why. Use them together for a complete review.

1. Select the text you want to comment on.
2. Press Ctrl + Alt + M (Windows) or Cmd + Option + M (Mac). Alternatively, right-click the selection and choose Comment.
3. Type your note in the popup that appears in the right margin and click Comment.

Comments and suggestions live in the same sidebar but are visually distinct: comments are speech bubbles, suggestions show the edit diff. A reviewer can leave a comment without making a suggestion (“Consider restructuring this paragraph”) or a suggestion without a comment (a simple typo fix speaks for itself).

To reply to an existing comment, click the comment thread in the sidebar and type in the reply box. This keeps the discussion threaded rather than scattered.

Step 4: Accept or Reject Suggestions

The document owner (or anyone with edit access) reviews suggestions one by one or in bulk.

One at a time

Click a suggestion in the sidebar or click the colored text in the document body. Two buttons appear:

• Checkmark (✓) — accept the suggestion. The edit becomes permanent text.
• X — reject the suggestion. The document reverts to its original state for that change.

After accepting or rejecting, the sidebar entry disappears and the next suggestion is highlighted automatically.

All at once

Open the review panel: click Tools → Review suggested edits. A dialog lists every pending suggestion with checkboxes. Click Accept all or Reject all to process them in one action.

Resolving comments

Comments don’t have accept/reject — they have Resolve. Click the checkmark on a comment thread to mark it resolved. The thread collapses and moves to a “Resolved” section at the bottom of the sidebar. You can reopen a resolved thread by clicking “Reopen” if the issue comes back.

Step 5: Use Version History as the Safety Net

Google Docs saves every change automatically, but version history is what lets you roll back a bad review session or see who changed what over time.

1. Click File → Version history → See version history.
2. The right panel shows timestamped snapshots. Click any snapshot to preview the document at that point.
3. Changes are color-coded by author, so you can see at a glance who made which edit.
4. If you need to go back, click Restore this version at the top.

Version history captures both accepted edits and the state before suggestions were made. If someone accidentally accepts a bad suggestion, restoring the previous version is faster than manually undoing each change.

What Suggesting Mode Does Differently From Word’s Track Changes

If you’re migrating from Word, a few behavioral differences matter:

• No “All Markup” vs “Simple Markup” toggle. Google Docs shows all suggestions inline by default. There’s no way to collapse them into a summary view the way Word does.
• Suggestions expire visually but not functionally. Old suggestions stay in the sidebar until accepted or rejected — they don’t fade or auto-resolve.
• Comment resolution is manual. Word lets you mark a comment “Done” but keeps it visible; Google Docs hides resolved comments unless you expand the resolved section.
• No password protection on tracked changes. Anyone with edit access can accept or reject suggestions. If you need to restrict who reviews, share the document with specific people and set their access level to “Commenter” for those who should only suggest, not approve.

Troubleshooting

I can’t switch to Suggesting mode. The pencil icon is grayed out. This means you have View-only access. Ask the document owner to upgrade your permission to Editor or Commenter. Commenters can suggest but can’t accept; Editors can do both.

Suggestions I made disappeared. Someone with edit access accepted or rejected them while you were away. Check version history to see who resolved what and when.

The sidebar is empty but I know there are suggestions. The sidebar can collapse on narrow windows. Click the speech-bubble icon in the top-right corner (next to the Share button) to toggle the comment/suggestion panel open.

I’m on mobile and can’t find Suggesting mode. The mobile app supports suggesting, but the mode switcher is under the three-dot menu (⋮) at the top → “Suggest changes.” The interface is more limited on mobile: you can make suggestions and comments, but bulk accept/reject is desktop-only.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use suggesting mode in Google Sheets or Slides?

No. Suggesting mode is exclusive to Google Docs. Sheets and Slides have comments (same Ctrl + Alt + M shortcut) but no tracked-edit equivalent. For spreadsheets, the closest workflow is making changes on a copy and using version history to compare. For slides, if you’re building a deck collaboratively, the pattern in our Google Slides template guide — one master file, individual copies per reviewer — avoids the need for tracked changes entirely.

How do I see only my own suggestions?

There’s no built-in filter, but you can identify yours by color. Each reviewer gets a consistent color throughout the document. If you’re the only one suggesting, everything in the sidebar is yours. For multi-reviewer documents, click a suggestion to see the author name before accepting.

Does suggesting mode work with Google Workspace admin restrictions?

It depends on your organization’s settings. Some Workspace admins disable editing entirely for external collaborators, which blocks suggesting too. If the pencil icon is missing and you’re on a Workspace account, check with your admin whether external sharing allows editing.

Can I convert suggestions to a clean final document?

Yes — once all suggestions are accepted or rejected, the document is clean. If you want a copy without any suggestion history, go to File → Make a copy. The copy contains only the final accepted text, with no suggestion metadata. This is useful when sending a deliverable to a client who shouldn’t see the review trail. When the client sends the signed or annotated file back as an email attachment, saving it straight to Google Drive keeps it beside the source document instead of buried in an inbox.

Sources:

• Suggest edits in Google Docs — Google Docs Editors Help
• Add and reply to comments — Google Docs Editors Help
• See version history — Google Docs Editors Help