In 2025 go to preferences and turn this off.
Then go into 2024 and save a template with all your usual materials…
Open in 2025 and Save as Template…
All older files you open will come in with the old swatches once you do this (unless you switch folders within the materials chooser).
There are also other threads here where you can copy the 2024 materials folder and replace the 2025 folder - I have not done this yet as I’ve made all my own materials that I use for client work.
One can also use the secondary pane to open or create a collection and link it to the materials in the 2024 version. It is displayed as materials1
Thank you! Will give that a go monday
Yes thats a great example.
With one edge radiused it will do everything we need from a preview.
You can always get any of the old textures of 3DWarehouse - 3D Warehouse
Yes, you’re right—the old sample materials were basic, maybe even outdated. But honestly, for most of us, that doesn’t matter. We’re not rendering final images with those textures—we’re just using them for that first step: the sketch phase. That’s what SketchUp has always been about—speed, clarity, and simplicity.
These days, the best rendering engines are D5, Twinmotion, Unreal Engine, and maybe a few others. Most SketchUp users aren’t relying on the built-in material pack for final rendering. Instead, they build clean, efficient models in SketchUp and export them to more powerful renderers.
Even platforms like SketchUp for Quest 3 rely on low-quality textures, because VR headsets can’t handle high-res materials anyway. So sure, the materials may be outdated—but they served their purpose well.
So what’s with the shift?
Is Trimble trying to push users into their own rendering system? Maybe. Is SketchUp just step one in a much bigger plan? Possibly. But here’s the issue—SketchUp is in a league of its own when it comes to modeling speed and ease. If Trimble uses that advantage to lock users in, the freedom this community has relied on could start slipping away.
And when you start taking away choice, the trust goes with it.
SketchUp was built for modeling. Let it stay that way.
I can still model just fine and appreciate the speed improvements made with the graphics engine, even if I don’t plan to make much use of the new material options - but I have some ideas on how to keep it simple and leverage some of the new features.
If you read my posts above you can make sure the new icons don’t affect your work. And it won’t affect your modeling. I just started a new project from scratch with my template and never once saw a cube in the materials picker.
Funny but true—I was doing the exact same thing. I couldn’t tell what half those materials were either. The only way to figure it out was to read the name, which kind of defeats the purpose of having thumbnails in the first place!
Anyway, I ended up restoring my setup. All I had to do was delete the 2025 materials folder and drop the 2024 one back in. Back to normal now—and way more usable.
That sounds like a solid method—maybe a quick video would help some of us follow it better. For me, I just went with a simpler route: deleted the 2025 materials folder and replaced it with the one from 2024. It was quick and got things back to normal.
That’s fine as well.
I just made a template that didn’t update all my materials that are already in the template. I don’t know why / how a video is needed.
This is a weird comment to me - no one is forcing you to choose SketchUp’s rendering engine… I agree that the new previews aren’t ideal, and that 2025 in some areas represents a reduction in the number of base materials in the library, but it feels like this whole thing is being blown out of proportion.
I agree. I am hoping this discussion path becoming out of proportion does not take away the focus on the icons being a bit of a design flaw for usability.
Sure, no one’s twisting our arms. But removing tools, shrinking previews, and calling it progress? That’s the kind of “optional” shift that’s hard to ignore.
This might not seem like a big move. But sometimes big shifts start small.
And if we don’t speak up now, we might blink and realize SketchUp turned into something totally different.
– Just a guy with a folder backup and a gut feeling.
uh ?
which tools were removed ? 
The textures that got removed were tools for me—especially in workflows with D5 Render and SketchUp VR. They weren’t just visual references, they were part of the system I relied on.
You can also keep using 2024 until things settle down. I stayed on 2022, skipped 23, barely used 24 and moved to 25.
they are removed. but not irreversibly so.
you can still grab them here :
there is nothing preventing you to keep working the way you used to.
Personally I like that there are fewer options, I used to go in and remove all the standard libraries so there wasn’t a bunch of underused materials. (It is more difficult to do that these days). I have a folder of custom materials that I like to work with and having the option to delete all the shipping materials would be great.
Look at it how you want - it’s pretty clearly just a transition to an expanded feature set, and there are plenty more materials available for download from the Warehouse. They’re just not packaged with SketchUp to save size on the download - exactly the way it works in D5, Twinmotion, etc.
There’s no massive conspiracy here, just a questionable UI choice
All the materials you want are hidden in a model called the grassy knoll.
