These are methods that disable or delay the WordPress autosave functions. The disabling plugin works with versions 2.3 through 2.7 (confirmed with 2.7) while the delay configuration works with 2.5 and later.

To Disable

Copy this text to a text file, name it whatever you want (using the .php extension, of course) and upload it to your WordPress plugin directory. Activate it and it works immediately, but you need to clear your browser cache:

<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Disable Autosave
*/
function disable_autosave() {
wp_deregister_script('autosave');
}
add_action( 'wp_print_scripts', 'disable_autosave' );
?>

If the copy-n-paste routine is too much work, I found a similar plugin all zipped up at http://samm.dreamhosters.com/wordpress/plugins/ after I wrote the above. The only real difference, that I can see, is the addition of "<!– disable-autosave.php plugin_deregister_autosave() –>" in the source.

To Delay

Hidden away in the "wp-settings.php" file for version 2.5.1 (I don't know if it was in 2.5), is this little snippet:

/**
* It is possible to define this in wp-config.php
* @since 2.5.0
*/
if ( !defined( 'AUTOSAVE_INTERVAL' ) )
define( 'AUTOSAVE_INTERVAL', 60 );

All you have to do is add define('AUTOSAVE_INTERVAL', 60) (changing to the 60 seconds to whatever amount of seconds you want) to your existing wp-config.php file below all the rest of the define settings at the top of the file.

My Choice

My choice is to disable it completely. I don't like the autosave function kicking in when I'm halfway through writing the post title because then I have to edit the slug as well.

Update 2008-12-17

I upraded two blogs to version 2.7 and created a new blog with 2.7. This method worked for all of them. I have reports that it doesn't work for some people, but I can't find a reason why. I have better things to do with my time right now than looking for an answer, like finding top wordpress plugins.

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