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I am looking for some way to autosave ad hoc notes on Linux. The main feature I am looking for is silently autosaving unsaved documents, where there is no need to explicitly save those notes when I close the program, and the program doesn't prompt me to save before closing.

On Windows, I use Notepad++ that has a feature where new, untitled documents are automatically saved (without prompting the user) and restored when the program is opened again.

On Linux, however, I have tried Notepadqq, which has the same feature, but it's too buggy for work use and doesn't have a lot of support.

Atom and Sublime may have this feature, but they are not lightweight and definitely not designed for quick notes. Notepadqq (and Notepad++) is much quicker, though the idea of the brief notes is not really part of it's intended use, either.

Wine is not an option, and if it were, I would still like to find a Linux solution.

EDIT/UPDATE: Offline only solutions, please. I am not interested in note keepers that require a remote login, or which generally focus on cloud-based repositories.

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3 Answers 3

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This is partly implemented in CudaText (freeware, cross-platform).

  • Install plugin Auto Save (it requires latest CudaText release) from menu "Plugins / Addon Manager / Install"
  • Plugin gives 2 options in the config file, call it by "Options / Settings-plugins / Auto Save"
  • Set plugin option "save_interval=" to number of timer seconds, e.g. 60
  • Set plugin option "save_onclose=1" to enable auto-save on closing tabs

From your wish, not implemented auto-save on app closing, but tabs closing gives auto-save.

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  • 1
    I have tested this solution, and it's not fixing one of my main concerns: no prompt. CudaText does have the nice feature of "Don't save/Keep in session", but I still have to interact (click on the button) with the program to close it. Is there an option make this the default, unprompted option on close?
    – iND
    Jun 11, 2018 at 14:53
  • @iND This seems to be fixed in CudaText 1.56.4, updated on SF.net. Plugin with option "save_onclose=1" - CudaText is closed w/o confirm.
    – RProgram
    Jun 11, 2018 at 20:48
  • This update is crashing for me, possibly invalid cpu version.
    – iND
    Jun 12, 2018 at 11:53
  • @iND You can take Linux x64 only, yet, x32 is not yet updated.
    – RProgram
    Jun 16, 2018 at 23:00
  • Thank you for the suggestion. However, I really am not interested in a solution that I have to manage. I need to be able to ignore it, updates need to be seamless, and I don't want to dig into settings files to make things work. These and other reasons are why I wanted something like Notepad++.
    – iND
    Jul 6, 2018 at 15:02
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Scratch

The text editor that works.

Scratch is the text editor that works for you. It auto-saves your files, meaning they're always up-to-date. Plus it remembers your tabs so you never lose your spot, even in between sessions.

It's the default text editor for Elementary OS. On Ubuntu you might need to add the corresponding ppa

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  • Worth noting there is a name chage and this editor is now called "Elementary Code".
    – Dɑvïd
    Sep 21, 2018 at 13:13
  • @Dɑvïd strange. The article was posted on 2/1, but I've just used the latest Elementary OS a month ago it was still Scratch with the old book-pencil icon. I just removed it because it's so bad compared to other distros
    – phuclv
    Sep 21, 2018 at 14:37
  • @phuclv Do you know any other similar editor? I'm looking for the same feature where "no save prompt on exit and restore the closed document" just like in Elementary OS. Now I use other distribution where I want a similar editor.
    – Wolverine
    Feb 6, 2020 at 19:08
  • @Wolverine as I said, you can add the ppa if you're on Debian or its derivative. Otherwise you'll need to compile from source
    – phuclv
    Feb 9, 2020 at 16:40
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VS Code (not exactly lightweight but it opens in ~2s in my PCs) also supports autosave by default. It can be configured via the files.hotExit option

Hot Exit

VS Code will remember unsaved changes to files when you exit by default. Hot exit is triggered when the application is closed via File > Exit (Code > Quit on macOS) or when the last window is closed.

It also supports autosave on delay or focus change

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