Help me not to loose my messages while finishing them, please.

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Anita Grace Clayton said: Could the text of a message to a fellow researcher be saved during writing it? It is so easily lost and rewriting these messages is often tedious. I would like to save it before sending it as it is often not ready to send, but if you accidently leave the page to check on a fact, it is gone. Poof and then you cry or think bad words. I try to remember to copy it so that I can put it back in, but the mind is cluttered.

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Tom Huber said: The twenty-minute timeout is a security response to problems with computers logged into FamilySearch in public settings.

At one time, the internet connection was not as solid as it is in many locations today, so if we had a lot of typing to do, we would do it locally, using a program like Notepad (or Pages) to prepare the text, then copy and paste to the internet site.

The problem still persists in many areas of the world, so the best advice is to do like we used to: Do it locally, using a program like Notepad (or Pages) to prepare the text, then copy and paste to the internet site.

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Anita Grace Clayton said: Why ca't there just be a feature built into familysearch where it doesn't disappear if you leave the page? On many sites what you wrote is still there when you come back. And what is a twenty minute timeout?

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Juli said: It's a good habit in general to never spend time writing longer texts on websites. Use a text editor on your local machine, preferably one that can autosave; when you're done writing, copy and paste into the website text box and hit submit/send.

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Paul said: Anita

I have been giving / agreeing with advice like Tom has given, but still caught-out a little while ago. I was convinced I could write a quick message directly within Family Tree but got distracted and lost several sentences that I carefully worded.

FamilySearch will not be doing anything to assist in this issue, so just remember NEVER to type more than two lines whilst in the program. Always type your message elsewhere, then copy/paste.

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Anita Grace Clayton said: Thanks Paul, now if I could just remember that. I know it but it's the putting into practice that is hard.

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Jeff Wiseman said: Anita, I feel your pain!

I've been dealing with this issue for well over 25 years now, and I STILL occasionally get bit by it (happened just yesterday). But after a while you get to the point that anytime you get ready to submit something or go to another page, you minimally Ctrl-c or Cmd-c copy it to your clipboard so that it is available if something goes wrong. Anyone that uses a web browser to access their email on a web server can become familiar with this as well.

FS exacerbates this a bit too. Occasionally, I attempt to open a new window to see the information I need and FS has blocked that browser function for some reason and I lose the data if I haven't saved it already. There are several places on the website where browser specific functions have been overridden for some reason and you get trapped into it

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Anita Grace Clayton said: Thanks Jeff, I did not know about Ctrl-C! Now to just remember.

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Tom Huber said: Sometimes, I am good at giving advice, but terrible at following it. I am like the rest of the users -- I occasionally get "caught" with the timeout. Jeff's advice below doesn't help when I forget to open another tab or window to FamilySearch.

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Jeff Wiseman said: Oooh! You're gonna like that. Instead of doing the copy and paste using the pull down menus on your screen, you use your right hand to do the selecting with your mouse, and the left hand to do the copy (Ctrl-c) and paste (Ctrl-v) functions. those keyboard shortcuts have been around for DECADES without much change and are a couple of just a very few keyboard shortcuts that I regularly use. Extremely fast with a bit of practice.

But Jui's advice below is good. If you are dealing with a large piece of text with a lot of thinking, build it in a separate local file editor. Frequently as I am entering information and I realize I am putting a lot more thought into something than I originally planned, I will just stop briefly and copy past the whole thing up to that point over into a separate file.

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Anita Grace Clayton said: Oh, that left click, right click thing , I do that all the itme but didn't recognize it as the term Ctrl-c.

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Anita Grace Clayton said: So what does the time out mean? I have at times returned immediately to the message when I realize what I have done and it is gone, so it must not last 20 minutes for sure, not even 20 seconds. Why can't it just be retained??