Use AutoSave

By default, SDL Trados Studio 2014 and later automatically saves your pending changes so that you do not lose your work in case Studio closes before you save your files. This can happen, for example, if your computer crashes or if the power goes out.

NOTE	The AutoSave feature is not a replacement for saving your files manually. If you choose not to save the files that Studio recovers automatically, the files are deleted and your unsaved changes are lost. Regularly save your active document by clicking the Save button or Ctrl+S.

Adjust AutoSave intervals

Studio automatically saves all your pending changes every ten minutes. However, you can configure Studio to save more or less often than that.

1.     Click File > Options > Editor.

2.     Make sure the Enable AutoSave box is selected.

3.     Specify how often you want Studio to automatically save your pending changes in the AutoSave every x minutes box.

To be extra safe, choose to autosave more frequently, for example every five minutes.  This way, you will never lose more than five minutes of work. On the other hand, if you want to make Studio faster, choose to autosave less often, for example every 20 minutes.

Location of your AutoSaved documents

When the AutoSave interval that you specified is reached, Studio creates AutoSavd versions of the *.sdlxliff files which contain pending changes and puts them in the AutoSave folder, located at the same place where you save your project data. The default location for your Studio project data is the My Documents area.

To check your project location:

1.     In the Projects view, right-click on your selected project and choose Project Settings.

2.     Check the Location field on the Project page.

3.     Click Browse if you want to change this location.

Studio gives each AutoSaved file a globally unique identifier, so that you never overwrite an AutoSaved file if you open a new project with the same name.

Opening AutoSaved files

When you restart Studio after an unexpected crash and you open a project file which contained pending changes, Studio does the following:

1.     Prompts you to recover the last AutoSaved file.

2.     Overwrites the original *.sdlxliff file with the AutoSaved version so that you are always working with the most up-to-date version of the file.

3.     Deletes the AutoSaved version and creates a new one when you make new changes to the file and the specified time interval is reached again.