autosave

Autosave is a feature in software applications that automatically saves a user's work at predefined intervals or in response to specific events, such as idle time, application focus loss, or program termination. The primary goal is to reduce data loss due to crashes, power failures, or user forgetfulness, by ensuring that recent changes are preserved without requiring manual saves.

Most autosave implementations store temporary copies locally or in the cloud and may maintain a version history. Time-based autosave saves every few minutes, while event-based autosave saves during particular actions. Some programs perform incremental saves, writing only changed blocks to minimize disk activity, and use atomic saves or safe write patterns to avoid corrupting files if a save is interrupted. In cloud-based applications, autosave commonly saves directly to a server, enabling real-time collaboration and automatic backups.

Autosave can enable quick recovery after a crash, with recovery prompts or automatic restoration of the last autosaved version. It also supports revision trails and rollback to earlier states. However, autosave may lead to unintended overwrites, especially when multiple people edit the same document; conflicts can arise if local and remote changes diverge. Privacy and security concerns may arise when autosaved data is stored off-device or in shared environments.

While autosave is widespread across word processors, integrated development environments, graphics editors, and email clients, it has variations in behavior and terminology, such as auto-recovery, revision history, or safe save. Users should understand the save interval and the location of autosave copies to ensure data integrity and privacy.