Emacs has two useful ways of protecting you from data loss. The first is auto save, which saves a copy of a file every so often while you are editing it. If some catastrophe caused you to close Emacs or shut down your machine without saving the file then you can use M-x recover-file to recover the file from its auto save. By default, the auto save files are saved in the same directory as the original file, and are given a name of the form #file#. This is fine for me, but you can configure this.
I like to make auto saves often, so I make the following tweaks to my emacs config file:
;; auto save often
;; save every 20 characters typed (this is the minimum)
(setq auto-save-interval 20)
When you save a file, the auto save file is deleted.
The other way Emacs protects you is to make backups of your files. By default the backup file is made in the same directory as the original with a name like file~. The way the backup works is that Emacs makes a copy of a file the first time you save it in an Emacs session. It only makes that one backup though, so this is not very useful if you keep your session running for a long time and want to recover an earlier version of a file.
The following code sets some general backup options and then configures Emacs to make a backup of a file every time you save it. The code builds on bits from here and here, and the comments should be quite self-explanatory.
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;; backup settings ;;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;; https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/BackupFiles
(setq
backup-by-copying t ; don't clobber symlinks
kept-new-versions 10 ; keep 10 latest versions
kept-old-versions 0 ; don't bother with old versions
delete-old-versions t ; don't ask about deleting old versions
version-control t ; number backups
vc-make-backup-files t) ; backup version controlled files
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;; backup every save ;;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;; http://stackoverflow.com/questions/151945/how-do-i-control-how-emacs-makes-backup-files
;; https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/backup-each-save.el
(defvar bjm/backup-file-size-limit (* 5 1024 1024)
"Maximum size of a file (in bytes) that should be copied at each savepoint.
If a file is greater than this size, don't make a backup of it.
Default is 5 MB")
(defvar bjm/backup-location (expand-file-name "~/emacs-backups")
"Base directory for backup files.")
(defvar bjm/backup-trash-dir (expand-file-name "~/.Trash")
"Directory for unwanted backups.")
(defvar bjm/backup-exclude-regexp "\\[Gmail\\]"
"Don't back up files matching this regexp.
Files whose full name matches this regexp are backed up to `bjm/backup-trash-dir'. Set to nil to disable this.")
;; Default and per-save backups go here:
;; N.B. backtick and comma allow evaluation of expression
;; when forming list
(setq backup-directory-alist
`(("" . ,(expand-file-name "per-save" bjm/backup-location))))
;; add trash dir if needed
(if bjm/backup-exclude-regexp
(add-to-list 'backup-directory-alist `(,bjm/backup-exclude-regexp . ,bjm/backup-trash-dir)))
(defun bjm/backup-every-save ()
"Backup files every time they are saved.
Files are backed up to `bjm/backup-location' in subdirectories \"per-session\" once per Emacs session, and \"per-save\" every time a file is saved.
Files whose names match the REGEXP in `bjm/backup-exclude-regexp' are copied to `bjm/backup-trash-dir' instead of the normal backup directory.
Files larger than `bjm/backup-file-size-limit' are not backed up."
;; Make a special "per session" backup at the first save of each
;; emacs session.
(when (not buffer-backed-up)
;;
;; Override the default parameters for per-session backups.
;;
(let ((backup-directory-alist
`(("." . ,(expand-file-name "per-session" bjm/backup-location))))
(kept-new-versions 3))
;;
;; add trash dir if needed
;;
(if bjm/backup-exclude-regexp
(add-to-list
'backup-directory-alist
`(,bjm/backup-exclude-regexp . ,bjm/backup-trash-dir)))
;;
;; is file too large?
;;
(if (<= (buffer-size) bjm/backup-file-size-limit)
(progn
(message "Made per session backup of %s" (buffer-name))
(backup-buffer))
(message "WARNING: File %s too large to backup - increase value of bjm/backup-file-size-limit" (buffer-name)))))
;;
;; Make a "per save" backup on each save. The first save results in
;; both a per-session and a per-save backup, to keep the numbering
;; of per-save backups consistent.
;;
(let ((buffer-backed-up nil))
;;
;; is file too large?
;;
(if (<= (buffer-size) bjm/backup-file-size-limit)
(progn
(message "Made per save backup of %s" (buffer-name))
(backup-buffer))
(message "WARNING: File %s too large to backup - increase value of bjm/backup-file-size-limit" (buffer-name)))))
;; add to save hook
(add-hook 'before-save-hook 'bjm/backup-every-save)
Files are backed up to a customisable directory in subdirectories per-session once per Emacs session, and per-save every time a file is saved. You can specify a maximum file size for files that will be backed up, and a regular expression to specify files that will not be backed up. I use the latter to avoid making backups of my emails by using the regular expression \\[Gmail\\] which matches emails I compose with mu4e. You can set this to nil if you want to disable this.
Pragmatic Emacs 