1. Computing & Technology

Discuss in my forum

Auto Save

Emacs Documentation

By , About.com Guide

Auto-Saving: Protection Against Disasters

Emacs saves all the visited files from time to time (based on counting your keystrokes) without being asked. This is called auto-saving. It prevents you from losing more than a limited amount of work if the system crashes.

When Emacs determines that it is time for auto-saving, each buffer is considered, and is auto-saved if auto-saving is turned on for it and it has been changed since the last time it was auto-saved. The message Auto-saving... is displayed in the echo area during auto-saving, if any files are actually auto-saved. Errors occurring during auto-saving are caught so that they do not interfere with the execution of commands you have been typing.

  • Files: The file where auto-saved changes are actually made until you save the file.
  • Control: Controlling when and how often to auto-save.
  • Recover: Recovering text from auto-save files.

* Emacs Manual Index

©2012 About.com. All rights reserved.

A part of The New York Times Company.