I have worked on Sketchup Pro when I was in college. MY student membership ended so I am now using Sketchup Shop. I want to be able to open my old work that I had in Pro into Shop to work on or show. How can I open up models in Pro into Shop?
Please say that that is even possible. 
Why should SketchUp not disallow its customers to reuse their own files and refuse them all their rights and needs? 
As in SketchUp Pro, you find the file functions in the top left menu (which just looks a bit different). As a customer you probably have already a Trimble account although even free users can create one for free.
I remember at one time I could open local files without logging in to Trimble Connect. I am also wondering why you can find under the âopenâ icon (or the âfolderâ icon) the functions to insert skp and image files, but not to open another skp file instead of the current one.
At least in Free, the reason is to force you to have the watermark. If you could open your own file (not insert it). Youâd have no watermark and could use this to open your own template. I donât have Shop so maybe it does have an Open menu item?
I think I got it. I loaded one of my models I have saved on my desktop but I havenât opened it yet. With shop I paid for it, so I shouldnât have a watermark.
Technically the File menu is the third item from the left in the menu bar, not the first as it has been for decades, because of course it is.
This is actually untrue.
Although Free does not advertise the drag and drop feature, ⊠it works quite well (at least on Windows.)
And the watermark is added automatically.
This is a very nice feature for those also using Desktop editions, to get a file with a style otherwise unavailable in SU4W into the browser app.
My guess at the reason might be untrue, but drag and drop to Free doesnât work on the Mac. If the watermark is still added automatically on windows then it wouldnât be a way to get around that, so why does Free not just let you open your own model from the menu instead of having to import it?
On the Mac, if you drag a .skp file to a window running SketchUp Free, the browser tries to load the file dragged as a file:/// url. In Chrome it tries to display the .skp as a text file so you see
âà»żSketchUp Modelï»żàŻż{8.0.16845}錻ëè@ççČćêï»żĂżáłŁć«â etc.
In Safari, it reveals the file in the Finder when loading a file:/// url that it canât display, such as a .skp file.
The files dragged are treated the same as if youâd dragged them to an empty browser window. Obviously, it can be done, like when you drag a file here to upload it to the forum, but Free doesnât capture the drop event.
I seem to recall that drag and drop has always had issues on the Mac. I believe that the Windows installer for the desktop editions may register an SKP file type drag and drop handler in the system registry database.
On this page âŠ
⊠it says âŠ
Mozilla and Firefox support some features not in the standard drag and drop model. These are convenience functions to facilitate dragging multiple items and dragging non-string data (such as files).
This indicates some browsers do have file drop support. I would also guess that there needs to be some OS support underneath.
Maybe Steve (@slbaumgartner) has some ideas ?
Yaâ got me by the socks ! It does seem silly to have to be forced to explode inserted models. (But insert works the same way on desktop as well.)
Once you open via drag and drop, the model is saved (even untitled) to the userâs TC account. The user must re-download the model and choose to overwrite the local copy to update it with any changes. This can be confusing to users. It would be simpler to have an open and save that automatically syncs local files and TC copies.
My only guess is that Trimble is forcing the promotion of Trimble Connect because they want the app to âfeelâ like a cloud app, rather than a local app that happens to run in a browser.
I assume there is some kind of code (likely JavaScript) by which the web app tells the browser to pass along drop events. But Iâve never needed to do so myself so I donât know how. Sorry!
