I accidentally deleted my house in SketchUp after saving and this is what I did

SketchUp
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1

Hey everyone,

I’m creating this post because I recently went through a nightmare scenario right before a major studio deadline: I accidentally deleted a huge chunk of my model and hit save, overwriting my master file. I saw older threads from a few years ago asking how to fix this without a clear resolution, so I wanted to share the exact method that saved my project using OneDrive Version History.

If you use OneDrive to back up your desktop or project folders, you don’t have to rely solely on SketchUp’s .skb backup files. You can actually roll back your master .skp file to an exact timestamp from earlier in the day.

The Trick to Finding Version History in OneDrive:
If you search for your file name using the top search bar in OneDrive, the system hides the “Version History” tool. To find it, you must navigate directly to the physical folder.

Step-by-Step Recovery Steps:

  1. Log into your OneDrive account on a web browser.
  2. Click My Files on the left sidebar (Do not use the search bar!).
  3. Navigate manually through your folders to the exact folder where your project is saved (e.g., Desktop > My Project Folder).
  4. Find your overwritten .skp file, hover over it, and click the three vertical dots (…) next to the file name.
  5. Click Version History from the dropdown menu.
  6. Look through the list of automatic timestamps, find the version from right before your accident, and click Restore.

This immediately reverts your file back to exactly how it was before the mistake. Hopefully, this saves someone else from pulling their hair out right before a presentation deadline!

2

You should add saving your model periodically to Trimble Connect. Each time you do it creates an incremental save so you can always go back to an earlier version if needed.

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It’s also worth noting that saving your file to a synced folder system can lead to corrupt files.
It may never happen to you but many corrupt files have been anecdotally traced to cloud storage/sync. It seems that a rare clash of sync and save can render the file unusable.

4

Hi Kalikal,

Thanks for taking the time to post this.

Like you, I use OneDrive regularly. I agree with the comments that it’s bad practice to work directly from files stored in the cloud, although I’m not sure that’s actually what you were doing.

My own setup is to work from a local folder on my C: drive and then use a utility called SyncFolder to automatically copy everything to OneDrive overnight.

I didn’t know that previous versions are available if you navigate to the file through its folder rather than the search function. That’s a really useful tip I wish I’d known before.

Thanks for sharing it. :+1: