Subject: bug#62817: Extension request: Must-Recover flag for files with auto-save information

From: Johann Höchtl <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2023 18:42:15 +0200

Currently when Emacs crashes, it keeps a list of affected files in
auto-save-list. Alternatively when opening a file where auto-save
information is more current than the actual file, emacs will display a
message in the status buffer and keep the entry in messages.

However, for novice users, this helpful hint can be easily missed, eg. if a
verbose mode prints messages in the status buffer, like lsp-modes comes to
mind. In such a case the hint that a more recent autosave file exists is
displayed and will get quickly replaced with other messages. If the user is
not aware of recover-this-file, he will likely overwrite more recent
auto-save information with subsequent edits.

I propose that this is bad behaviour and a configuration exists which halts
any further processing until the user actively finishes what a manual
recover-this-file would offer him to do. This feature makes sense,
especially as of Emacs 29? auto-save-files can be reliably deleted by Emacs
itself.

As discussed on reddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/z6ulwe/comment/iyb6bzm/?context=3