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firefox recover form data

Have you ever spent 10 minutes writing something and then pushed the "Submit" button only to find out that you have lost your Internet connection and your information has all been lost? Or that you have lost your form due to a Firefox crash or your own stupid mistake (such as clicking the "cancel" instead of "submit" button? I sometimes do that!)

Have you ever felt desperate because of the need to type the text all over again?

If "yes" is your answer (and if you use Firefox), read further and try these tools (they won't save your life in any situation that may occur but they will recover the form data in most cases!).

Lazarus

Lazarus [No Longer Available] (already reviewed by Saikat here) is the most popular text-saving tool out here. It works really smoothly, saves text automatically and is there only if you need it.

According to their own words:

Lazarus works on ordinary web forms, WYSIWYG editors, and even AJAXified comment boxes, and will save you from pretty much any given server, browser, or connection problems that might otherwise cause you to lose your work, or that really pithy blog comment you struggled on for over an hour.

It Has Two Options:

  • Recover Text - which recovers text in one (current) field. It also lets you preview the text on hover-over:
remember form data firefox
  • Recover Form - recovers the whole form completing all the fields you previously completed:
firefox recover form data

The options menus allows to:

  • Let the tool save the passwords;
  • Remove the saved forms after the set period of time;
  • Require passwords to restore forms:
remember form data firefox

Does the tool remember text after the Firefox restart? Yes.

Note: The tool saves data after you click "submit" - it is unlikely to save your life if you pushed "cancel" instead of "submit"

Textarea Cache [No Longer Available]

Textarea Cache is a similar tool, but it does provide a bit different functionality that makes me a fan. The tool is rather simplistic, it can't remember the whole form but it is nice to use for saving the text area contents.

What I like about the tool is that it isn't tied to a form. Instead, you can access the tool (via the status bar icon) any time to see the whole history of what you have typed and where:

  • Time;
  • The form page title;
  • (after you select one) The exact text you submitted:
remember form data firefox

The options allow you to:

  • Show the status bar icon when text is saved in the cache;
  • Don't save text in private browsing mode;
  • Maintain the list of domains you don't want to save text from:
Text area cache options

Does the tool remember text after the Firefox restart? Yes.

Text Saver

Text Saver (not reviewed by Mozilla and still in experimental mode) - while being the least usable of all, this one also seems useful in some cases.

What makes it stand out is that it doesn't saves text automatically - it only saves something if you ask it to.

To save the text, you will need to follow these steps:

  • Type something in a text area;
  • Right-click on the text-are and choose "Add this text to text Saver"
  • Give this extract a name (to easier identify it):
Text Saver

Next time you need it, open the tool sidebar (via the icon in the status bar) and notice it there:

firefox recover form data

Note: The addon works not only with text areas. You can add pretty much any text there. You can also use the drag-and-drop functionality to drag any parts of text directly to the tool sidebar.

From the sidebar, you can:

  • Delete any text;
  • Edit any note;
  • Search within your notes

Does the tool remember text after the Firefox restart? Yes.

Do you use any text-recovery tools in FireFox? Please share them in the comments!