The Saved Document Will Be Saved Again

The document has autosave enabled.

This is known. The setting was configured when the software was installed, or when the account was created, or when the document was first opened — the exact moment is not important. What is important is that autosave is on, it has been on for the duration of this document's existence, and it works.

The document is also being manually saved every three to four minutes.

The Classification

There are three types of document savers. The first trusts autosave completely and never manually saves. This person has had good experiences. The second manually saves periodically as habit, without anxiety, the way people check if they locked the front door without specifically worrying. The third presses the save shortcut after every paragraph, after every tab switch, before any action that might conceivably cause the document to close, and immediately after the autosave indicator resets.

This essay is about the third type.

The Behavior

The autosave indicator says "Saved." The manual save shortcut is pressed. The indicator says "Saved." The indicator was saying "Saved" before the shortcut was pressed. Both the state before and after the keypress are identical. The person typing has nonetheless registered the indicator change as meaningful.

The shortcut is pressed again after pasting something. It is pressed before switching to a browser tab. It is pressed after returning from the browser tab. It is pressed twice in quick succession when the screen flickers slightly for an unrelated reason.

The Origin

The behavior originated from an experience of losing work, either personally or through hearing about it happening to someone else. The loss was real or the threat was sufficient. The autosave was not yet trusted, or did not yet exist, or failed once at a critical moment. The manual save became the primary save. Autosave became the backup. This arrangement was never updated when the reliability of autosave increased.

Autosave has been active for four years. The manual save behavior has also been active for four years. Neither has displaced the other. Both continue.

The document is saved. It will be saved again in thirty seconds.