Can work that was not yet submitted be recovered through Canvas?

[delanietz]

Hello, 

I was working on an assignment when the text box simply disappeared. The assignment was not turned in. I tried going the undelete route described in the Canvas Guides but only got a access denied page with a lock on it. Are there any further steps I can take to recover my work? Thank you.

[heather_stockfo]

Hello Delanie Behringer 

General speaking, if the assignment never technically existed, it would be nearly impossible to recover.

I highly recommend always writing your assignments in a word doc or another format that is truly digital.

Best,

: )   Heather

[josephclaytonha]

Hey Delanie,

Heather is correct. The text box field in Canvas is a standard HTML text box. This content is not cached, because it is being constantly updated until a submission is made and storing every single keystroke would be a massive amount of memory (also an invasion of privacy that would be blocked by anti-malware software like Windows Defender.) 

The undelete option is only available for instructors or admins, because students can't edit a course. The undelete page doesn't recover assignment submissions- rather, it restores pages or assignments that were accidentally deleted. 

I'm sorry that there's no way to recover your work! I would suggest Google Docs in future, as that service will save everything you write.