The Other Side of Autosave

I started using Google Keep a few months ago.  Google Keep is essentially a note taking app that can record notes, messages, reminders, checklists, etc. in a variety of methods.  It’s also flexible enough to handle photos and other types of data imports.  It integrates with other Google apps (Drive, calendar, etc.), which I also use, and across devices.  I thought it would be pretty amazing, but the organization methods are a bit too basic for my needs.  And then I got burned by Google Keep last week.

I was using Google Keep to record a unique 25-character passcode on a note with similar types of information.  I realized I didn’t need the passcode and deleted it.  The delete key went too fast and wiped out 95% of my note in about 2-3 seconds.  Then I saw Google Keep autosave the “changes” with no option to reject, unsave, undo, or restore a previous version.  The irony of The Deletist being out deleted by an app named Keep!

The whole experience made me keenly aware of how different my smartphone keyboard is from a laptop, or desktop, one.  Had I been using Google Keep from my laptop, I could have easily undone the accidental deletions with ctrl+Z, or by right-clicking the mouse.   Or I might have been able to restore the document from an earlier auto-saved version.

And then I started to feel really irritated by the instant auto-save feature.  I’ve definitely lost work when it wasn’t saved and something happened to the computer or network.  But to me the solution was never to autosave every keystroke.  I like having the document temporarily autosaved in the background for restoration purposes, but only if it doesn’t cause the app to slow down.  But I also prefer to consciously decide when I want to save, or not save, changes.  Why can’t Google Keep have an option for me to choose when I want to save something?  Why can’t I have the option of closing the document without saving changes?

As for the note… I did a few Google searches and found similar stories.  A couple people had accidentally replaced their notes with a single letter while trying to copy and paste them.  I still haven’t found a way to restore the information, other than by recreating it.  Fortunately only 2 things got deleted and I can replace them with minimal effort.

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