Project recovery

While you work, the open project is written to a recovery slot in the browser’s own storage: about two seconds after any edit, and immediately when the tab is hidden or closing. If the tab is closed by accident, the browser crashes or the page reloads, the app brings the work back on its own the next time it opens, with its clips, samples and impulses, and tells you where it came from.

When to use it

You do not switch it on. It is there for the moment you need it: a laptop that ran out of battery, a browser update that restarted everything, or an accidental ⌘W. It is a safety net under saving, not a replacement: a snapshot that matched its last save is dropped at the next start, because the file already has it.

Controls

Automatic restore

When the app opens with nothing else requested, the newest unsaved snapshot whose tab is gone is restored before anything is shown, with a message such as “Restored your unsaved work on “Seaside” from 14:32” and a Discard button. A reloaded tab gets its own work back the same way.

Discard

Throws away the restored work, with any changes you made to it since, returns to an empty project and deletes the snapshot. The message goes away once you open another project, so Discard never touches anything else.

Restore or Discard

If a project arrived first, for example a .drtape file double-clicked in the installed app, the snapshot is offered instead of applied: “Unsaved work on “Seaside” from 14:32 was found”, with Restore and Discard. Restore replaces the open project with the snapshot and reports it in the status line. If the open project has unsaved changes, you are asked first whether to save them.

The saved file

A restored project remembers which file it came from. Its name is shown as before and Save writes back into it; Chromium asks once for permission inside the Save click.

A take that was still recording

While an audio take records, a copy goes to the browser’s storage as it arrives. If the tab crashes, reloads or closes before you stop it, the song comes back with the take on the track you were recording, starting where you pressed Record and ending where the audio stopped. The message says so, for example “Restored your unsaved work on “Seaside” from 14:32, including 1:12 of a take that was still recording”. One Undo removes the take and keeps the rest, and Discard throws it away with everything else. When the take’s track is gone, Download recovered take keeps it as a WAV file instead.

Several tabs

Each open tab holds its own slot, so two songs open at once never overwrite each other. Only work whose tab is truly gone is treated as abandoned, one song per launch; the next tab or launch restores the next.

Tips

• The last two seconds before a hard crash can be lost; a snapshot never replaces ⌘S before you close the lid.
• A take that comes back after a crash ends abruptly where the audio stopped. Trim it or give it a short fade like any clip.
• Safari clears script storage after seven days without use unless the app is kept on the Dock, so install it there if you rely on recovery.
• The single-file editor is separate: export its WAV before closing.