The automatic draft save is a convenient safety net, but it has limits. Understanding these limits helps you avoid losing work in non-obvious situations.
Only this browser on this device
The browser keeps the draft locally. This means:
- You opened the project in another browser on the same computer (Chrome, then Firefox) — the draft from the first browser will not appear in the second.
- You opened the project on another device (home computer, then phone) — the draft from the first device will not be picked up.
- You opened the project in private/incognito mode — the draft will not survive closing the window.
To make the draft available from other devices, click "Save" — after that the changes are on the server and accessible to you anywhere.
Clearing site data = losing the draft
If you clear site data in your browser settings, the local draft disappears along with other saved site data. So before such a cleanup, it's worth opening the account and clicking "Save" on all open projects.
Old versions are not kept in the browser
The browser only keeps the current draft. If you rolled back to an earlier version of the project via the version switcher and began editing, the browser will only remember this new revision. The edit history up to the rollback is kept on the server (see Project versions).
Large projects
Browsers limit how much data a site can store locally. For very large projects (several hundred parts with full processing) you may see a "not enough space" warning. In that case, we recommend saving the project to the server manually and not accumulating a large number of edits "in the browser".
Related topics
- How the browser draft autosave works — the basics.
- Saving the project to the server — how to merge the draft into the server copy.
- Version mismatch: memory and disk — if the draft on one device doesn't match the server copy.