n8n autosave is here: never lose your workflow progress again

Lost 30 minutes of workflow work to a browser crash? That pain is now gone. n8n shipped autosave in version 2.4.0, and it changes how you build workflows.

Here's what you need to know.

The problem autosave solves

Before this update, n8n only saved when you clicked the save button. Miss that step before your browser crashes? Gone. Close the tab by accident? Gone.

Worse: saving a workflow meant deploying it. Every save pushed changes to production. Not great when you're mid-debugging on a live workflow.

What changed

n8n 2.4.0 introduces three connected features:

1. Autosave

Your changes save automatically every two seconds. No button clicks. No thinking about it. Just build.

2. Versioned publishing

This is the big one: saving is now separate from deploying.

When you make changes, they save to a draft. A yellow status indicator shows your draft differs from the published (live) version. When you're ready, you explicitly publish. Only then do your changes go live.

This means you can:

• Iterate freely without affecting production
• Test changes in the editor before deploying
• Roll back to any previous version instantly

3. Concurrency protection

Working with a team? n8n detects when someone else is editing the same workflow and switches you to read-only mode. No more accidental overwrites.

What this means for you

If you're building workflows for clients or your own business, this changes your development workflow:

Before: Build carefully, save sparingly, pray nothing crashes.

After: Build freely, iterate quickly, publish when ready.

The versioned publishing model matters most for production workflows. You can now:

• Debug a broken workflow without taking it offline
• Test different approaches in drafts
• Hand off workflows to teammates without stepping on each other's work

Best practices

Use version history actively. Before making major changes, note what version you're on. If something breaks, you can roll back in seconds.

Publish deliberately. Just because changes are saved doesn't mean they're live. Get in the habit of the draft → test → publish cycle.

Don't fight concurrency protection. If n8n puts you in read-only mode, coordinate with your teammate. The feature exists because merge conflicts in workflows are painful.

Coming soon

n8n has more version control features on the roadmap:

• Custom version naming
• Better version history visualization
• Version renaming

Our take

This is infrastructure that makes n8n feel more like a real development environment. Separating save from publish mirrors how code deployment works. That's exactly right for workflows running in production.

For teams building client workflows, this removes a whole category of "oops" moments.

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