hello, I need help! The next week there will be my degree. Yesterday I was working on my model and I temporary deleted some objects from it, but in that moment the programme accidentally stopped functioning. I found the skb file, but even if I change its extension in skp, it open the last autosaved version of my model. I need to restore the last version of the model before the autosave. Can I use photorec or Recuva to restore the overwritten version? If yes, must I search for the old skb or skp file? Thank you
If you use DropBox you can get back old file versions. I think newer operative system like Win 10 has an option for going back to previous versions too but am not sure if its enabled by default.
Otherwise there isn’t much I can say except recommending to frequently take backups and save snapshots of your progress. SketchUp’s File > Save Copy As is great for this and I think all programs should have that functionality. Regularly copying all your documents to a USB stick or external hard drive is also good.
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Thank you for the answer. I have windows10 but I don’t use DropBox. I downloaded Photorec: I found a lot of skb files (not skp), but when I try to open one, it says “unexpected file format”. Should I try different programmes?
You should avoid overwriting (simple saving) files for important steps/milestones. The problem is that by saving a file, it is written in the same place and the data that was previously there cannot be recovered, at all. When doing “Save as” the file is written in a different place and even if you mark it as deleted, it can be undeleted as long as it has not been overwritten by another file.
Operating systems may have a feature “Copy on Write” which by default never overwrites, always writes elsewhere. If enabled, you may find that in Windows 7 in the file Properties as “Shadow copies” or in Windows 10 as “Previous versions”.
If you used file recovery software, make a copy of the recovered files to avoid accidentially making changes to them.
An skb file is a copy (only one at a time) of the previous version that is created when saving an skp file. Both may contain your model. For the skb file, rename the extension to skp (or append “.skp” so that you can still identify that it was the skb file).
If the recovered file does not open, it may be corrupted (part of it overwritten by another file) and not recoverable. There is always the risk that big files become corrupted (because saving takes longer, there is a longer period of time when some event could cause saving to fail). Always have a copy of important data on another disconnected device (or in another building).
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Thank you!