How to Sync Form Drafts Across Devices

The Short Answer

Chrome and Edge sync bookmarks, passwords, history and autofill profiles. They do not sync unfinished text inside a form, a rich text editor or a single page app.

Form ReDraft keeps drafts locally and adds optional sync across the devices you add with a key. Once a key is saved, drafts and deletions sync automatically every hour while the desktop browser is running. Sync now remains available for the moment you cannot wait.

Why Chrome Sync Leaves Form Text Behind

Browser sync is built for small, structured records. A bookmark is a title and a URL. An autofill profile is a name, an address and a phone number. An unfinished ticket description or a long reply can be hundreds of kilobytes, and it changes on every pause in typing.

Extension sync storage reflects the same design. Chrome documents a total quota of about 100 KB and 8 KB per item for chrome.storage.sync (Chrome storage documentation). One long draft can exceed the per-item limit on its own. Even when storage accepts the data, browser sync is not a live draft channel, so it cannot be the thing that restores your text after a crash.

That is why a form recovery tool has to keep a full local copy first, then offer a separate sync path for the devices you choose. The local copy is what saves you after a reload. The sync path is what saves you when you change computer.

What Cross-Device Draft Sync Should Do

1. Stay off until you ask. Local recovery should work with no account and no network. Sync should be a second decision.
2. Use a credential you control. A random sync key avoids an account database and the password reset flow that comes with it.
3. Run on a schedule. Relying on a manual button means the one time you forget is the time you needed it.
4. Carry deletions. A draft deleted on one device must not return from another. Tombstones matter as much as new drafts.
5. Clip stale drafts. Retention pruning should propagate so an expired draft does not reappear forever.
6. Tell the truth about encryption. Local drafts are encrypted on disk. Sync uses an encrypted connection, and each device stores its own encrypted copy. The sync service holds the text so the other devices can read it.

How Form ReDraft Sync Works

Form ReDraft keeps a local encrypted copy as you type. When you add a sync key, the extension queues each change and sends it to your private workspace. The server merges by timestamp, so a newer draft beats an older one instead of overwriting it blindly.

The client stores a cursor. Each sync asks only for changes after that cursor, rather than downloading the whole library every hour. When nothing has changed, the run costs one entitlement read and no document query, which keeps the service cheap enough to leave running.

Deletes travel as tombstones. A draft removed on your laptop is removed on your desktop at the next sync. The same mechanism carries retention pruning, so an old draft does not keep coming back.

Set Up Sync in Four Steps

1. Open the Form ReDraft settings page from the gear icon in the popup.
2. Enter the sync key that arrives after payment, or reveal and copy the key from your first device.
3. Save the key on the second desktop browser. The extension clears its old cursor and joins the workspace.
4. Type on either device. Sync runs every hour while the browser is running, and Sync now pushes and pulls immediately.

The key is the only credential. Anyone who holds it can read and write the workspace, and there are no read-only roles. Store it somewhere safe and never paste it into a page.

What Syncs and What Does Not

Drafts and their deletions sync. Settings do not: recording scope, retention limits, the blocked list and your own sensitive field patterns stay on each device. That is deliberate, because a work laptop and a personal laptop often need different rules.

Sync requires the extension to be installed and the browser to be running. It covers desktop Chrome and Edge profiles, not mobile browsers, because extensions do not run there. It also requires the optional yearly plan. Local capture and restore keep working with no plan and no key.

When to Export Instead

Export is better when you want a file rather than a live channel: moving a one-off set of drafts, keeping a backup before a profile reset or reading the text outside the browser. The settings page writes a plain JSON file that any editor can open. Export and import are part of the same yearly plan as sync.

Use sync for the everyday case, where the same person moves between two machines. Use export for the archive case, where the text needs to exist outside the extension. The export guide covers the file format and what to check before relying on it.

Frequently Asked Questions

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