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hey everybody brandon here from cad
intentions and in today's two minute
tuesday
we're going to take a quick look at how
to adjust your auto save and
backup settings within autocad as well
as where you can find the files and how
to open
or access them this one's going to be
super useful for everybody
if you haven't come across this before
you can save
hours of work if you've had a crash or
forgot to save or lost a file
this is going to help you recover them
and track those down and make you look
like a genius in the process if you guys
like this video don't forget to hit the
subscribe button down below and like it
as well as check out my autocad
productivity webinar which i'll link
below and
up above where i've got an hour jam
packed full of productivity workflows
tips and tricks that are going to save
you guys
even more time let's jump into this one
and save those files
[Music]
all right so the first step i'm gonna
show you guys is how to figure out where
your auto
save files are going as well as if
you've even got them turned on
and the interval that autocad is going
to auto
save for you so this will allow you to
change that interval
as well as track down the files
hopefully you've already had this turned
on
it is by default so you should be okay
but if not
you may be out of luck to recover your
files
in that case hopefully you have the
backup
and you can see here in these options
menu so you're going to type in
options to bring up this dialog box and
then go to the
open and save tab first just to make
sure that these are turned
on so you can see the checkbox here for
automatic save
this is going to save your drawing
automatically to a temporary folder that
autocad
has predetermined and then you can also
choose the interval so how
much time goes between auto saves this
is going to vary depending on the
type of work you do and the file sizes
if you're working over the network
or a network with large files an
autosave can kind of be a pain because
you'll be in the middle of doing
something and autocad will basically
freeze or at least it will to you
while it doesn't auto save sometimes
that can take multiple
minutes or more with large files over
a slower network connection in most
cases you're going to want it anywhere
from
10 minutes to half an hour so you can
never lose more than
10 to 30 minutes of work
most of the time a slow save isn't going
to be an issue especially if you're
working on smaller stuff or on a local
network
the next box you want to make sure that
you have checked here is the create
backup copy with each save this is just
going to save your but
it's also going to give you a way to go
back to the previous version if you
accidentally make some changes you
didn't want to and i'm going to show you
what that one
look what that file looks like and where
it's saved as well as the automatic
saves next you can also adjust the
file name for the temporary files by
default it's ac
for autocad and a dollar sign this
doesn't really matter
because you're not going to be using
these files unless you need to recover
and in that case i'm going to show you
how to do that
next you want to go to the files tab
here and you want to find the automatic
save file location hit the plus sign
here and you can see where it's going to
save
your auto save files in a local temp
folder as it is by default is perfectly
fine
if you don't like you can put these in a
specific folder
on your c drive or on your network
but by default this is fine too since
you're rarely going to need these
to change it you can simply hit the
browse button and
point your path to a new folder
but what you want to do is make note of
that so we can track
these files down so i'm going to show
you what this is going to look like so
i'm just going to copy this path
and open it up in an explorer window
over here
and you can see i've got my temporary
folder open
and this drawing here is the one that
we're in right now you can see it's open
but it did an auto save about 10 minutes
ago
so i'm going to select my file here and
in order to open your auto save file in
autocad you simply need to change the
file
type at the end here so we're going to
hit f2
or you can right click and rename i'm
going to delete the
sv or sc dollar sign and simply type in
dwg so you now have a dwg file
by hitting enter to confirm that you can
see it's now a recognized autocad fold
file simply open this file in autocad or
drag
and drop it up at the top here i'm going
to close the option window to do that
dragging and dropping it up into the top
bar here is going to open my save file
so you can see it's auto saved it's a
complete working file
now you may run into issues occasionally
with xrafts and stuff when reopening
this save file you might need to reload
or reconnect them
but this is going to save your butt
you're going to have a new one of those
files
every 10 20 30 minutes depending on your
setting
the other way to access these files
especially if you have a crash
is to open up the drawing recovery
toolbar here so i'm going to type in
drawing
recovery that's going to auto complete
there
and on the left here you can see all of
the files that i've had open in the last
uh since i've cleared my temp folder and
just by simply hitting the plus sign
you're going to see which
options are available and this is going
to have
uh any save files or backup files or
recovery files and then by clicking on
them
it's going to give you the path to find
it the last day it was saved
and it's going to allow you to open them
directly
from this manager so this may be the
quickest and
most straightforward path to recovering
a drawing so this recovery one you can
simply right click and hit open
and that's going to open it up back in
your drawing you can recover
repair and then do a save as to continue
working
on that drawing now lastly we're going
to just take a quick look at
the backup file that is created every
time you save a drawing in autocad
if you don't know this tip already you
can right click on the tab of your
drawing
and choose open file location so that's
going to open
a window with the path to where your
drawing is
saved and from there you're able to see
your dwg which you have open in this
case we'll just say this is our
open drawing and it's made a
backup for you by default now to access
or use this backup which is a direct
copy of your dwg just in case something
gets
corrupt later down the road or you lose
your dwg and need to recover it
you can simply use the same trick by
hitting f2 or right clicking
and renaming the file and simply change
the file type to dwg
hit enter it's going to make sure you
want to do this
make sure it's spelt right otherwise
this file is not going to be
usable in any of the software so you
want dwg
hit yes and you can see that it's
already been named here
so i'm just gonna say yes and it'll add
the
two so that we don't have the same file
name but now
similar to before simply double click
open this file
drop it in and you've got access to your
backup
so there you go those are three
different ways to kind of
see and access your recovery autosave
and
backup files within autocad hopefully
this is going to save you guys a lot of
headache
i know it saved me dozens of times at
least
just losing or having crashes and being
able to recover at the very least
10 to 20 minutes give or take
worth of work so you're not losing a
half a day or a day
hopefully this helped you guys don't
forget to subscribe to the channel
leave a like below and check out my
productivity webinar because i think
it's going to save you guys even more
time
and let me know in the comments what
you'd like to see next or any issues
you've run into
thanks for watching cheers
thanks for watching the video hope you
guys enjoyed it uh be sure to check out
my
last video right here and don't forget
to subscribe
up here to make sure you're up to date
and
you see all my new videos thanks again
cheers
![How to Recover Unsaved or Deleted AutoCAD Files? [4 Methods]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/2zGGUzpH_8M/mqdefault.jpg)
