What is dropped the moment you switch

The whole list

1. Being signed in on the route you left. The account is untouched. The state of being recognised there ends.
2. Whatever you passed at the entrance, which is per route and will be presented again. See front door checks.
3. Anything typed into a form and not submitted. This is the only entry with contents.
4. Whatever your browser was holding for that host, which was never yours to keep anyway.

Why the third entry is the only one that matters

The first, second and fourth cost time and mild irritation. The third can cost work: a long message, a carefully written address for a delivery, a note attached to something, a set of details entered field by field.

None of that exists anywhere except on the page in front of you until it is submitted. Leaving the page is not different from closing it.

Why this surprises people

Because so much of the modern web saves as you type. Readers have been trained by drafts that persist, forms that come back, and text that survives a closed tab.

That training does not transfer. The safe assumption in this context is the older one: nothing is saved until it has been sent, and a page you leave takes its contents with it.

The two situations where this bites

A long message, covered in switching mid message, and a half completed order, covered in switching mid order. Those are the two places where readers routinely have real work sitting unsubmitted.

Both have the same remedy and it is not clever: finish it, or deliberately keep a copy somewhere of your own, before you go anywhere.

What is not on the list

Nothing that was saved. No order, no message that was sent, no balance, no account. Those are the things people fear losing and they are not at risk, which is the point of what carries across.

It is worth reading the two lists together, because either one alone gives a distorted impression.

The failure that is not a switch

The same loss happens when a route stops answering while you are mid form, and nobody chose to switch at all. The page is still there, the text is still on it, and it can no longer be submitted anywhere.

That case is worse because it arrives without warning, and it is a genuine argument for keeping long text somewhere of your own while you write it.

A proportionate response

Not paranoia. Just a habit of noticing whether anything is unsubmitted before changing route, which takes a second and covers everything in this study.

Readers who switch often, as recommended in rotating on purpose, should do that rotating at the start of a visit precisely so this question never arises.

The line, once more

Submitted is safe. Typed is not. It is the shortest true statement about switching and the only one that needs remembering.

The habit that closes the only real gap

Glance at the page for anything you have typed and not sent before you go anywhere. It takes a second and it covers the entire contents of this study, because the other three items on the list have no contents.

Readers who adopt it stop needing to think about switching at all. The move becomes what it should be: a minute of friction with nothing at stake, which is the condition under which people will actually use the other two routes.

What this study is not. It is not a claim about what any form saves, which varies and is not something this site inspects.