I trialled Sketchup 2022. A message was displayed when the trial ended, summarised as follows: “you can continue to work on this model but cannot create new models until you purchase”.
I needed to finish the model before stopping to purchase a Pro Subscription… then the software crashed.
I have now purchased a license, but the model I was working on has reverted to a very old state, so I have lost a lot of work. Where is the version of the model in between the end of the trial and the purchase of the license?
I have searched the autosave folder and searched for all .skp and .skb files on my computer, but I cannot find the latest version of the file. Where is it? Does anyone have any suggestions?
PS: the support section on the Trimble website is broken. I tried filling in the support form, but it just says “experiencing technical difficulties.
For various reasons SketchUp is unstable and crashes. You have to save your model as you work. In general you should not lose work because SketchUp has a back up system. Look for a folder called “Recovered Files”.
Thanks for the suggestion, but no luck. I have developed the habit of hitting CMD+S every few minutes in all applications I use - especially Sketchup… but I’m now realising this did not seem to work the moment the trial expired. I had to wait till I got paid by my client before I could pay Trimble. Seems like everything is lost.
In what directory were you saving the SketchUp file as you worked? The last saved version of it should be there. The trial version is not limited except in the time it is allowed to run before you need to supply the license. Your file should be saved somewhere. That said, the trial version is intended to be used for software evaluation and not for commercial work. See section 2.1 here.
The recovery files are saved in a place that macOS doesn’t normally search. In Finder you can Choose Go to Folder… from the Go menu, and paste in this text:
That will take you to the right folder, and hopefully you will see the same named file, and it will be a version that is more recent than your last saved file.
If that doesn’t work, look in the folder you were saving to, for the same named file, only it would have a ~ at the end of the name. For example, My Model~.skp instead of My Model.skp. That will be a copy of the previous save of the file.
Thanks for your suggestions. I checked, but it’s not there. I know it was dumb to trust a trial… I was just hesitant because it’s so expensive. The lesson is: despite setting Autosave every five minutes in Preferences, and pressing “cmd+S” every minute, don’t expect Sketchup to save your work in trial mode!
Thanks for offering a plausible theory… but no… I was not running from the .dmg. The app was installed on my local hard drive in the normal location, and the file was also saved on the hard drive… but once the trial expired, it stopped saving.
I accept that I have lost all my work, I’m just warning everyone to ignore the official message from Sketchup.
When the trial ends, a message appears which can be summarised as: “you can continue to work on this model but cannot create new models until you purchase”.
But in reality, after a trial expires, you cannot expect to continue to work on an open file that was created and saved during the trial.
On the other hand, you shouldn’t be doing important work that you need to keep with the trial version. The terms of use state that the trial version is for evaluation only.
The five minutes autosave functionality is a setting that saves your progress in a temp file every five minutes.
The term ‘autosave’ doesn’t work the same like some other apps (Word, excel)
When doing a normal save (Cmd+S) these temp files are gone (they are not needed anymore if you perform a Cmd + S.
So the file should be somewhere in your system, since you kept pressing Cmd+ S.
Only the progress done after the trial period might be gone…