Saving, Restoring, and Sharing a Design

This guide explains what happens to a shopper’s work in the customizer when they pause, leave, or want to start fresh. It is for merchants who want to understand the save, restore, reset, and share behavior so you can answer customer questions with confidence.

The short version: a shopper does not have to finish a design in one go. The customizer remembers their progress in their own browser and brings it back the next time they open the same product.

Progress saves automatically

As a customer fills in the personalization fields, the customizer saves their progress to their browser’s storage. This happens in the background as they type, so they never press a save button to keep their work. There is a small delay (the save is debounced) so it only writes once they pause, not on every keystroke.

When the customer comes back to the same product in the same browser, their design is restored. They see a note at the top of the controls: “Welcome back! Your design has been restored.” Their text, fonts, colors, and choices are back where they left them.

If they would rather begin again, the same note has a “Start over” option. Selecting it clears the restored design so they can build a fresh one.

Saved progress is kept for 30 days. After that, the saved draft expires and the customer starts from the product’s defaults.

Screenshot to capture A Welcome back note telling the shopper their design was restored, with a Start over option

Reset and share

The controls panel has two secondary actions for managing a design: Reset and Share.

“Reset” returns the fields to their defaults. It clears the customer’s entries and removes the saved draft for that product, so the design starts clean. This is the same effect as “Start over”, available any time rather than only on the welcome-back note.

“Share” appears once a design has been saved. Selecting it copies a link to the saved design to the clipboard. The link points back to the customizer for that product with a token that identifies the saved design. When the customer (or someone they send it to) opens the link, the saved design loads back into the customizer.

After a save, the customizer also shows a “Design saved!” note with a “Copy share link” option, so a shopper can grab the link without hunting for the Share button.

Screenshot to capture The Reset and Share buttons in the controls panel

Storage warnings

Some browsers block or limit local storage, for example in strict private-browsing modes or when a device is low on space. When the customizer cannot save to storage, it tells the shopper: “Your browser storage is full or disabled. Your progress won’t be saved between visits.”

This warning does not stop them. The customer can still personalize the product and add it to cart in that session. The customizer falls back to keeping the design in memory for the visit. The one thing they lose is the cross-visit restore: if they close the tab and come back later, the design will not be waiting for them.

If a shopper reports this warning, suggest one of two things: enable storage for your store in their browser settings, or finish the design in one sitting and add it to cart before leaving.

Screenshot to capture A warning that browser storage is full or disabled so progress will not be saved

Saving on Etsy orders

If you sell through Etsy, saving works a little differently because the customizer runs before checkout, outside Etsy’s cart. Here, saving does not add anything to a cart. Instead, the shopper gets a design code (it starts with CMP) on a screen titled “Your design code”.

The customer copies that code and pastes it into the Personalization box on the Etsy listing when they buy the item. That links their saved design to the order. The code stays valid for 30 days, the same window as a normal saved draft.

For the full shopper journey, see how a shopper personalizes a product.

Common questions

Next, see personalization form fields to understand exactly what gets saved when a shopper fills in a product.