retitle 76299 recover-this-file warning blotted out with -nw thanks It turns out the problem is not with symlinks, but with -nw ! $ emacs -nw -Q goo then type a lot, then ^Z, then $ kill -1 % $ script --command emacs -Q -nw goo Indeed, you will see the recover-this-file warning, but very swiftly it goes away, as the buffer gets painted over, and you see with the terminal sequences in this typescript file attached.