When done correctly and everything is working properly you should be able to be signed into and working with both 24 and 25 at the same time on the same computer. I certainly can.
I mean, considering the 3d warehouse already has this choice, and from what was said in and out of the labs, I wouldn’t be surprised to see such a change coming in the near future.
I guess the question on everyone’s lips is why wasn’t this a function added in '25? It’s almost silly that we’re here abdicating for such a function when its exclusion was an oversight, particularly when seen as a necessity on the 3D warehouse!
at some point a software has to be released.
they could have postponed the release a couple weeks to change that and other minor things. then we would have found something else. and they could have postponed again. and then…
a choice was made, many of us said meh, not the best choice, and they answered okay, we’ll look at that again.
we don’t know about the release calendar or the features planned. could there be something else coming ? perhaps. could the new thing impact the material panel again? sure why not ? are they going to alter it based on our feedbacks ? I hope so.
Yes. While a huge fan of sketchup I can no longer see which material I’m using . I always have to select 5 before I get the right one with the new cubes.
oh yeah, me too.
I mostly work in colours, and am lucky enough to be on a mac where the colour picking tools are really good. picking a coloured cube is tricky because none of the three faces actually matches the actual colour.
when it comes to cubes, the mac interface is even worse than the PC one, because the cube are even smaller. I end up trying the materials on the side on a bunch of extra faces to pick the right one.
Phew!
You had me worried for a minute…
Thankfully the problem here isn’t an existential one.
Maybe Trimble folks could do a survey on how best to display materials, and that would solve it.
My Sketchup 2025 materials dropdown looks like this. All the materials prefixed with the word ‘Old’ are the Sketchup 24 flat materials. They exist happily alongside the new materials.
If this is an idea that interests you then read on. The description that follows is for Mac but, although the folder locations will be quite different, I suspect there is a very good chance the same basic structure and principle may apply for Windows.
You will need Sketchup 2024 installed on your system even if it is not activated or being used so as to access its libraries. Once you have finished the procedure below you can uninstall and remove it if you don’t want or need it.
Sketchup 2025 keeps its materials in: Users > Username > Library > Application Support > SketchUp 2025 > Sketchup.
In the last folder you will find two materials folders: Materials and Shipped Materials. Shipped Materials is, exactly as its name implies, contains folders with the standard default materials that ship with SketchUp and Materials contains materials you import or create and save yourself.
Exactly the same file structure applies for Sketchup 2024. So copy any 2024 material folders you want to keep from 2024 Shipped Materials to 2025 Materials. DON’T copy them to 2025 Shipped Materials or you will have name conflicts. Once they are installed in 2025 Materials rename them to whatever you want to distinguish them from the same names in 2025 Shipped Materials.
That’s it. It’s very simple. You will find it much easier to follow when you have the folders open in front of you.
How SketchUp 2025 treats these materials and whether you want it to keep them flat or convert them to pseudo PBR materials has been covered earlier in this same thread.
Have fun!!
I’m thankful for the new default materials and i hope they keep increasing the higher quality default textures into the future.
I think higher quality materials and the PBR road is the way to go, too. The conversation took a few twists and turns here. If one wants to summarize it into something actionable it might be this:
Dear Sketchup:
-
It’s not that we don’t like your new materials. We don’t like the VERY TINY cubes that represent them. And it’s not because we don’t like cubes. It’s because they are tiny and the material cannot be distinguished on them. Please fix this.
-
The new default material selection that comes with Sketchup is too limited. Please include MORE materials in your default installation. It’s COOL that we can download more stuff but it’s more steps, too. Basic stuff like colors, glas, etc. should simply be included in the installation at approx. the same amount/variety as in Sketchup 2024. Please fix this.
Thanks. 
Well, that’s one way to deal with it—send feedback, wait, hope they listen.
But there’s another way. A quieter one.
You don’t argue. You don’t chase.
You simply walk out the door… and start building SketchUp 2.0 with ChatGPT 5 at your side.
No cubes. No clutter. Just the tools we actually use—designed by people who actually design.
It won’t be rebellion.
It’ll be relief.
But let me be clear—this isn’t a call to jump ship.
Personally, I’d rather see SketchUp evolve into something even better.
But the writing is on the wall: GPT-5 is coming. And with it, the power to build serious tools—fast.
It’s not hard to imagine a group of talented designers building their own thing.
Something leaner. Smarter. Built from experience, not legacy.
Because let’s face it—competition doesn’t ask for permission.
It just shows up.
And when it does, it doesn’t wait.
There is still time to listen—before silence becomes the loudest reply.
Change doesn’t knock. It logs in, exports, and replaces.
@Hamzah198501 you should team up with @Alan4 - between his 3d brilliance and your innovative use of AI I look forward to what you guys release for professionals to use and get their work done.
Deep philosophical insight here.
Any chance you sell these “sayings” on little glazed tiles, you know, like the ones you can find in grandma’s kitchen?
.
.
summarizing this thread:
Good materials question with great solutions and/or workarounds.
(I see that @bmike is starting his own tiles business now)
You can mock all you want.
Elon Musk was once dismissed by the Russians.
Now he’s the one rescuing stranded cosmonauts—doing what they once dominated.
It’s easy to dismiss what’s unfamiliar.
Until it’s the one that’s winning.
— They laugh… until they copy.
Copy the Russians?
This one is gold. There’s so much truth in it, more than you can ever imagine. The near future will tell you though.
I am genuinely curious about this opinion and the likely consequences. So you ask AI to make you a tool, which is fine until it embeds an error that no one noticed. (AI is apparently good at that). Once it is spotted, who carries the consequences?
Also what if you ask AI to rewrite the code and it comes up with a completely different way of working that no one likes. How is this a good thing?
This may be what has happened with the cube(?), but I remain confident Trimble have enough testing and quality control over their coding to know how to improve it without throwing everything out and asking AI for Sketchup 2.0.
I understand English might not be your first language, so let me break it down.
The Russians laughed when Musk asked to buy their rockets.
Now? Well, you can see how that turned out.
That’s how this industry works.
First, they laugh at you.
Then—they copy you.
And Trimble is no exception.
