Is it true that SketchUp won’t open or run if I don’t have an internet connection? SketchUp is installed on my PC, and the models are stored locally on my hard drive. However, I’m not allowed to export these models when I’m offline.
Lets say I go to a location that has no internet at all.
Assuming you are speaking about Pro / Desktop - IIRC SketchUp phones home every 28 days or so where you need to sign in and validate your license.
How have you verified that?
I turned off the internet and then tried to open Sketchup and it wanted to first sign in before it would let the software run.It simply would let me gain access to any of my work even though the data is on my own PC.
Unless there is some bug in the new version it should work.
Try again:
Be sure you are signed in.
Disable network connections.
Launch SKP.
It should work just fine until it needs to phone home again in ~28 days.
I have used my laptop on the train / plane with no internet connection - I just need to be sure I am signed in before I leave the house.
If you are referring to using the desktop version of SketchUp as opposed to the browser-based version, you shouldn’t have to sign in more than once every ~28 days as @bmike indicated. If you have to sign in every time you start the desktop version, that would imply that there’s an issue with SketchUp correctly writing login_session.dat. That can happen if SketchUp wasn’t installed correctly and Windows isn’t granting the required permissions to allow that file to be written.
Try this: Close SketchUp and LayOut and copy: %AppData%/SketchUp/SketchUp 2025/ (or whichever version number you are using) and paste it into File Explorer. Find the file called login_session.dat and delete it. Do a cold reboot then find the installer in your Downloads folder, right click on it, choose Run as administrator, when prompted, choose Repair. After doing that do another cold reboot and then open SketchUp and signin in.
From there you can test again to see if SketchUp remains signed in.