Working on a design in Canva is easy to use and simple, but some projects require more time than others. That’s why the auto-save feature comes in handy. If something happens to your design, such as the program or your laptop turning off, it will be saved automatically.
But how can you be sure if your progress has been saved? This article will discuss how the auto-save feature works, how often the program auto-saves, and other ways to save your design.
How often does Canva automatically save?
Canva offers auto-save functionality in both the PC and mobile versions. To do this, Canva uses the Mongo DB cluster to save your design. The autosave rate has apparent technological advantages and disadvantages. The more often your design is saved, the less you will lose it in an accident or other incident. However, this comes at the cost of additional write operations to the backend and database cluster.
Canva initiated the autosave feature at a five-second rate, meaning the software only saves every five seconds if the user is changing their design. This seemed to work well with an average workload.
However, occasionally significant spikes in design activity occur, which quickly exhaust the limited write capacity of the database, resulting in severe performance degradation for all Canva users. The auto-save function was the most significant contribution to the writing load.
One way to solve this problem would have been to expand the database cluster to improve steady-state write capability. However, this implies that most of the expensively obtained write capacity would have remained unused under typical stress.
Instead, Canva decided to dynamically change the layout’s auto-save rate mechanism, requiring each user to take a break for a moment. This outage allowed Canva to level and moderate the demand for database writes during periods of high usage.
Canva was able to define auto-save criteria in two ways.
The approach covered queries per second (or QPS) performance and latency (or millisecond delays). A monitoring system measures a five-minute moving average of performance and lag supporting the autosave function.
The tracking system is combined with dynamic thresholds that change in real time, allowing adjustments to be made. When determining the criteria, the number of active users of the program should be considered.
When thresholds are overflowed, users can receive a response. When a user receives a response with “speedup: true”, it reduces the autosave rate to the lowest possible level. If the user receives a “throttle: false”, the speed of autosaves is increased by a fixed amount up to the maximum speed allowed.
Unfortunately, this means that the auto-save rate of changes in Canva is not fixed; It depends on the general traffic on the platform. The average is every few seconds after the changes occur.
How to save automatically
In addition to automatic saving, there is also manual saving. Automatic saving is more accessible and to do this follow these steps:
- On the Canva home page, click “Create a design.”
- Check if “All changes saved” is written in the taskbar right next to “Resize.”
- Change your design as you like. When adding changes, the text “All changes saved” will be replaced with “Saving changes.” This means that it is currently saving all the things you have modified.
You can still save manually if you want to be sure you’ve saved all the current changes you’ve made to your design. The steps to do it are:
- Click “File” on the taskbar after finishing your design.
- Select “Save” from the menu.
- If you don’t see the words “All changes saved,” click “Save.”
- Go to the “Save to Folder” option if you are working on many projects at once. Select this option and navigate to the folder where you want to save your current design.
However, you can also save your designs directly to a platform like Plann Workspace grid or Plann Media Collections.
Here are the steps to save layouts to the Plann Workspace grid:
- Click the “+” symbol to create a new layout.
- Select the “CANVA” button.
- You’ll go directly to your Canva account, where you can make changes to your custom design.
- Select “PUBLISH” when you’re done.
- Your work will appear in your Plann Workspace Grid, where you can write a description and schedule a post on Instagram.
To save your designs directly to Plann Media Collections, the steps are:
- Add media to your design by clicking the “+” icon.
- Choose “CANVA” as the media source.
- You will be directed to your Canva account, where you can make changes to your custom design.
- Choose “PUBLISH” after finishing your design.
- Your work will appear in your Plann Media Collection, where you can write a caption and schedule a post on Instagram.
Additional FAQs
What can I do if my autosave isn’t working?
The changes you made to your design may not have been saved because you are using an older version of the app or software, have unstable Internet access, or are experiencing ongoing site difficulties.
Check if your browser or mobile app is up to date. If necessary, update your browser or application to the latest version. Make sure JavaScript is enabled in your browser. You can try using a different browser as the one you are using may not meet the technological requirements. Also, check if you have a fast and reliable Internet connection.
Sometimes changes may not be saved because the saving process was interrupted. To avoid this, look at the status bar. Canva saves designs every few seconds after you’ve edited them. Before closing designs, wait until the status bar shows “All changes saved.” To check the status in the mobile app, first tap the three horizontal dots.
You can always save the design manually or clear your web browser’s cache and history. Cookies that have accumulated can occasionally create problems. However, you should be aware that doing so may result in you being logged out of other websites.
Design without worries
The auto-save feature can prevent you from wasting hours of work. However, it is not perfect. Some problems may occur from time to time and it happens that not all changes are saved. If you’re not sure if all your changes have been saved, check the taskbar or save your file manually just in case.
How often do you use Canva? Have you ever lost any work due to auto-save failure? Do you prefer to save files automatically or manually? Let us know in the comments section below!
