Help:Edit Recovery
The Edit Recovery feature of MediaWiki core, developed by the WMF Community Tech team, is a browser-based system of saving in-progress edits, to allow for recovery in case of the browser being accidentally closed. Edit data is stored locally on the user's device. This feature is for the wikitext editor, not VisualEditor, and does not require WikiEditor to be enabled.
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The feature has been deployed to all Wikimedia projects, and as of April 2024 development is continuing. This was the #8 wish in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey. Users are invited to report any issues on the project talk page.
Usage
Once enabled, nothing further needs to be done in order to use Edit Recovery. Start editing any wiki page, and every five seconds the current state of the editing form will be saved to the browser's storage. If the window is closed (either accidentally or by a computer crash etc.), re-open it and navigate back to editing the same page — if there is any recovery data available, it will be restored into the editing form and a notification displayed.
The notification gives you two options: to view the changes (this is the same as clicking the normal "Show changes" button), or discard them. The notification can be dismissed in the usual way by clicking anywhere else on it.
If you wish to stop editing a page and not have any edit recovery data saved, the "Cancel" link (next to the "Show changes" button) should be used. As soon as you click "Cancel" the edit recovery data is deleted and you'll be navigated away from the edit form.
Special:EditRecovery
There is a special page at Special:EditRecovery which lists all current pages that have any recovery data. Note, as Edit Recovery uses local storage, this list is specific to only the current browser and device.
Opting out
A user preference is available to enable/disable the feature.
See also
- Manual:Edit Recovery — information about the feature for wiki system administrators and developers.
