While you work, each app keeps a recovery copy of what you have not saved yet. It is not a save: your file on your computer only changes when you save it. The copy is there so a crash, a closed tab or a computer that turns off does not cost you your work.
When the copy is kept
- A few seconds after you stop editing, and at least every 30 seconds while you keep going.
- When you switch to another tab or window.
The copy stays in this browser, on this computer. Nothing is uploaded.
Get your work back
- Open the same app again, in the same browser.
- If it closed before your work was saved, it asks Recover your work? and lists what it kept, with the time of the last copy.
- Choose Recover to open it, or Discard to throw it away.
- Save it to a file as soon as it opens.
Not now keeps the copies for 30 days, and the app asks again the next time it opens. A reload counts too: reload a tab with unsaved work and the app offers it back.
Things to know
- When you save, or close a file on purpose, its recovery copy is removed.
- Another tab of the same app that is still open never offers your copies. It only offers work from a tab that has gone.
- Private windows in some browsers, and a browser with no space left, cannot keep a copy. The app tells you when that happens, so save to a file more often.
- Clearing your browser's site data removes the copies.
- Not every app keeps a recovery copy yet. Each app's own help says whether it does.