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Don't Use Draft Mode Post Editor, For Long Periods

Too many blog owners continue to trust their efforts to Page / Post Editor, over long periods of time, without backup.

We see the agony, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue, too often.
How do I get my post back? I have been working on it for months. I accidentally cleared the screen - and seconds later, the empty post was saved by post editor! Help meeee!!
This blog owner is now in for some bad news.

Until you publish a page or post, the content in the unpublished page / post will be in your computer, and in the Blogger servers.

If the content in the Blogger servers is destroyed or lost, your computer becomes the only holder of the content. Retrieving unpublished content, from browser cache, will not be not a simple process.

This problem may also involve fluctuations in the Blogger / Google CDN structure.

You cannot retrieve unpublished content, from local cache, consistently.

You may find some tutorials, which will give vague hints about local content retrieval. Frequently, ability to retrieve unpublished content will depend upon browser, operating system, and network / security accessories on the computer.

Unpublished content will never be retrievable, similar to recovery of a deleted page / post. The best way to avoid disastrous loss of unpublished content will always be to avoid developing a page or post over long periods of time, without publishing.

Think about consequences of accidental content loss, when un published.

When you are working on a page or post - and repeatedly saving it, before closing the edit session or re starting the browser, think.

Think.

Think about how much trouble you were to have, if what you were working on should mysteriously vanish.

Be extra careful, when editing two draft posts, at the same time.

A known problem, which has been reported occasionally, involves people who edit two or more posts, simultaneously, as draft. Sometimes, the content from one post ends up in the other - with the content from that post being lost.

It's a rare - but not imaginary - problem. Unfortunately, it has not been reported enough to diagnose.

The longer you take to edit a post, the more chance that you will need to edit a second post, simultaneously - and the greater chance that the content from one post will replace the other. Just be very careful, when you edit in draft.

Consider developing content, as a periodically published static page.

If your thoughts cause you to pause even slightly, consider initially publishing, and viewing, the content as a page. One of the advantages of publishing pages is that access to a static page, even published, has to be intentionally provided. A static page, even when published,
  • Appears in no archives / label menu.
  • Appears in no feed gadget or Reading List.
  • Appears not on the Home or Main page display.

What you publish, in a static page, will be visible to nobody but you - generally from the dashboard Pages page. A published static page will be more accurate than viewing an unpublished page or post in Editor Preview mode. And once published, you will not be subject to the malfeasance of AutoSave - and the constant threat of saving an accidentally cleared page / post editor session.

That said, and I once again will point out, Blogger is not a CMS. If you intentionally save - or publish - a page or post with content missing, that content is still gone. There is no possibility of retrieving multiple revisions of a page or post.

Alternately, develop your page / post using Google Docs.

If the later limitation is important to you, consider developing your page / post using a Google Docs file. If you must develop a page / post over long periods of time, save important revisions to Google Docs / Drive - or simply develop the content using Google Docs.

Just think about what you're doing. Please.

However you want to do it, stop blindly editing unpublished content, over long periods of time.

Please.

Think.

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