My writing app lost work after syncing

Stop the sync from going further

Stop writing on every device. Each new edit is another chance for the older copy to be saved again and spread.

Next, work out which device last showed the good text. If one still does, cut its connection first with airplane mode. Then copy the text out, all of it, into a plain file or an email to yourself. Only then let it reconnect. And leave the stale device closed. Opening the app there is how an old copy can get a second chance to win.

Where the text may still be

• The app's own version history, page history, or snapshots, if it keeps them.
• Its trash or recently deleted list, and any folder it makes for conflicting copies.
• Local backups the app writes on its own; its settings or help pages say where.
• Earlier file versions kept by the sync service underneath, when the files live in a service like Dropbox or iCloud Drive.
• System backups like Time Machine on a Mac or File History on Windows.
• Copies you exported, printed to PDF, or sent to a reader.

Then write to the app's support, and do it early. Give the time you last saw the text and the devices involved. Some services hold server-side history that only they can reach, and some only for a limited window.

For next time, export a copy on a schedule into a format another program opens: DOCX, Markdown, or plain text. Keep it somewhere the app does not sync.

In Tabularia

Tabularia's own sync is not immune to this, and its guide says precisely how it settles a disagreement between two devices. Ordinary edits in different chapters merge as they arrive. Edits to the same passage are fitted together and the result kept, with no prompt and no mark left behind. And for the checkpoint of the entire book, the device that checked in last is the one that counts; a device returning with an older copy takes the cloud's version in place of everything it held, review changes and timelines included. The section on writing on two devices has the details.

What survives that is the Snapshot. The Cloud plan backs Snapshots up, and a Snapshot made on another machine shows up in History under In the cloud. Pressing Bring it down copies it to this one. Undo/Redo History does not travel at all. The guide's own advice matches the steps above: let a device finish syncing before closing it, avoid having the book open in two places at once, and keep exports of your own. Cloud subscribers can export a project archive that carries the Snapshots along with the prose.