I was working on a Sketchup file on my Sketchup 2020 and my PC crashed and there is no autosave of the file in the folder “C:\Users<Username>\AppData\Local\SketchUp\SketchUp 2020\SketchUp\working\SKETCHUP\RecoveredFiles” even though I have autosave turned on and set to save every 5 mins.
I have lost an entire days work.
Is there anywhere else the file might be located?
As a test I created another file and crashed sketchup on purpose and I can see that this did autosave to the above folder.
As a follow up to this, if my file was called “Filename”, there is a file in the same folder called “Filename-0.skp” that is 0kb in size that was saved late in the day that would have all my work, if it was not 0kb in size.
I assume SU created an Autosave of the file in “C:\Users\AppData…\SKETCHUP\RecoveredFiles”
If it did, I assume SU thought that the file was now saved the files documents folder and deleted the autosave version from RecoveredFiles.
On this assumption, I went through the hard drive with several file recovery programmes, and even searched for all deleted files in the RecoveredFiles with no luck. I also went through all SU files on the drive searching for the signatture Hex values for the file, and I could not find a later version of the file anywhere.
It may have been overwritten as the drive was fairly full.
The old system whereby Autosaves were saved in the same folder as the file was much better, as the file would be in a users documents/desktop/server folder and you are far more likely to have a cloud or backup based solution targeting this folder.
Nobody is going to have a cloud/backup targeting a hidden \AppData folder.
Is there any way to change this?
FWIW, the Autosave was never intended to provide a ‘version-history’ of your model, just for Backup when something went wrong.
The reason why it didn’t show on that location could be that the temp memory wasn’t enough (guessing here) It might be an extension and or combination of
Best practices (old timer, here)
Start a model
Name it and save to a location that is not synched automatically (eg iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive, etc)
Continue working, save the file on a regular base by hitting Cm+S (mac) or Ctrl + S (windows)
especially before executing an extension that requires some heavy math.
‘Save As’ when I get to a turning point
Purge and check the model in ‘Statistics’
Set up an endview for the thumbnail view in the Explorer or Finder
‘Save and Close’ when done
Get back in control, don’t rely on software settings