This does not 'automatically save the buffer' as if C-x C-s ( save-buffer) was called for you, but if you activate auto-save-visited-mode, it would. After a crash, they can be restored with M-x and recover-file, recover-session, or recover-this-file. auto-save-default makes copies of your files in ~/.emacs.d/.local/cache/, then deletes them when you save the buffer.

(setq auto-save-default t) is all you need, but perhaps you've misunderstood how it works. (modules :completion company ivy :ui doom doom-dashboard doom-quit hl-todo modeline nav-flash ophints (popup +all +defaults) vc-gutter vi-tilde-fringe window-select workspaces :editor (evil +everywhere) file-templates fold multiple-cursors rotate-text snippets word-wrap :emacs dired electric ibuffer vc :checkers syntax :tools (eval +overlay) (lookup +docsets) lsp magit :lang data emacs-lisp markdown (org +dragndrop +present) (rust +lsp) sh :config (default +bindings +smartparens)) 'XPM JPEG TIFF GIF PNG RSVG CAIRO SOUND GPM DBUS GSETTINGS GLIB NOTIFY INOTIFY ACL GNUTLS LIBXML2 FREETYPE HARFBUZZ M17N_FLT LIBOTF ZLIB TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS GTK3 X11 XDBE XIM MODULES THREADS LIBSYSTEMD JSON PDUMPER LCMS2 GMP') '-prefix=/usr -sysconfdir=/etc -libexecdir=/usr/lib -localstatedir=/var -with-x-toolkit=gtk3 -with-xft -with-wide-int -with-modules -with-cairo -with-harfbuzz 'CFLAGS=-march=x86-64 -mtune=generic -O2 -pipe -fno-plt' CPPFLAGS=-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 LDFLAGS=-Wl,-O1,-sort-common,-as-needed,-z,relro,-z,now') Otherwise, it would be fantastic if someone would tell me how to activate auto-save. I still can't believe that auto-save is deactivated by default – so if there is some way to restore crashed sessions that I missed, I'd be very interested in hearing about it! 😉 If someone uses Doom for sensitive data and doesn't want these sensitive data spread around the file system, then these users should deactivate auto-save. So these files are anyway available from the file system in plain text. This makes no sense to me, because most Doom users, most likely, mostly use plain-text files. It talks about having potentially sensitive data spread around the file system. I can't follow the reasoning of the comment mentioned above.

It seems pretty insane, to deactivate this feature by default. So first of all, I'd like to ask for a change of the auto-save default settings for new users. In the meantime, I basically saved all files every time I write something. Even now, I try to suppress my memory of the comment that is above the code that deactivates the auto-save feature in Doom Emacs, to be completely honest. (Btw., if you are wondering, why I didn't open an issue earlier – just let's say, I had to wait this long, to be able to write a constructive message. Sure, it was not very smart, to not save the files for so long – but all of my editors that I have used during the last 10 to 15 years have auto-save activated by default (and don't freeze if the window size changes).Īfter this loss, I researched how to activate auto-save in Doom Emacs to activate it – and then I lost data again! Two months ago I lost notes worth at least a week. Or at the very least, users should be made very aware that auto-save is disabled, and how to activate it (for example, via a wizzard during the installation). It would be great if auto-save was activated by default.

Alternatively, a feature request), and a request for help. This is kind of a combination of a bug report (IMO.

Emacs save file