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Gmail recently added an auto-save feature that throws a copy of a mail-in-progress into the Draft folder, protecting
it against browser crashes or inadvertant tabbing away from the Compose screen. The feature didn’t seem to work when I
first tried it; I dashed off a couple of lines and closed the Firefox tab without sending. Returning to Gmail, the
draft was not to be found. Trying again, and writing a longer excerpt, I observed a notice that the draft had been
automatically saved. I closed the entire browser, rebooted it, went to Gmail, and found the partial mail in the Drafts
folder.
At this point I didn’t know whether the successful save was due to closing the browser instead of the tab, the longer
excerpt, or perhaps a tie-in between the auto-save feature and my computer’s clock.
I proceeded to slowly build an e-mail, a few characters at a time, to see whether the feature would kick in after a
certain length had been reached—all the while keeping my eye on the computer clock. The ticking clock did not invoke
the auto-save notice as minutes turned over. However, the draft got saved in a burst of typing that brought the
character total over about 50 (an approximation; I didn’t count exactly).
So, auto-save works nicely, but only if you’ve typed enough for Gmail to consider it worth saving.
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