You wrote a long reply or support ticket, pressed submit, and got "session expired" or a blank page. Before you retype it, try these, fastest first:
-
Press Back once (
Alt+←). Pages restored from the back/forward cache often still have your text in the box. Copy it somewhere safe immediately. -
Reopen the closed tab (
Ctrl+Shift+T/Cmd+Shift+T). Some sites restore drafts. - Check the site's drafts. Gmail, Outlook, Reddit, WordPress, Discourse and many help desks autosave server-side drafts.
-
Undo in the empty box (
Ctrl+Z) if a script cleared it without reloading the page. -
Clipboard history (
Win+Von Windows) if you ever copied the text.
The real fix: keep a copy while you type
Form-recovery extensions like Typio and Lazarus used to do this, but they stopped working when Chrome moved to Manifest V3. I built a replacement called Typeback:
- saves text boxes, text areas and rich editors (contenteditable) about a second after you stop typing
- right-click the empty field → "Restore last draft here" (or
Alt+Shift+Z) - 100% local (IndexedDB), skips password/card fields and private windows, per-site pause
A few implementation notes for extension devs: one draft per field per page visit (overwritten while typing, so no keystroke spam), restore via document.execCommand("insertText") so undo history and React/Vue state stay intact, and with all_frames only the focused frame answers the "which field?" message.
Details and a test page: https://nightdrivewalls.surge.sh/typeback/
Written with AI assistance; the extension and its tests are mine.
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