Where Are AutoCAD Recovery Files?

Have you ever encountered a situation where you accidentally closed AutoCAD without saving your work? It can be a frustrating experience, but fortunately, AutoCAD has a built-in feature that can help you recover your unsaved files. In this tutorial, we will explore the location of AutoCAD recovery files and how to access them.

Understanding AutoCAD Recovery Files

AutoCAD creates temporary files while you are working on a drawing. These temporary files serve as backups in case of unexpected software crashes or accidental closure without saving. The recovery files have a .sv$ extension and are saved in a specific location on your computer.

Finding the Default Location

To locate the default folder where AutoCAD saves your recovery files, follow these steps:

1. Open AutoCAD on your computer.
2. Click on the “File” tab in the top menu bar.
3. Select “Options” from the drop-down menu.
4. In the Options dialog box, click on the “Files” tab.
5. Look for the “Automatic Save File Location” field.
6. Note down or copy the file path mentioned in this field. This is where your recovery files are stored by default.

If you accidentally closed AutoCAD without saving and want to recover your work, navigate to this file path using File Explorer or any other file management tool.

Locating Recovery Files Manually

If you cannot find the default location or want to search for recovery files manually, follow these steps:

1. Open File Explorer or any other file management tool.
2. Navigate to the drive where AutoCAD is installed (usually the C: drive).
3. Look for a folder named “Users” or “Documents and Settings.”
4. Open the folder with your username or the username under which you were logged in while working on AutoCAD.
5. Search for a folder named “AppData” or “Application Data.”
6. Open the “AppData” or “Application Data” folder.
7. Inside this folder, locate the “Local” folder, and then open it.
8. Look for a folder called “Autodesk” and open it.
9. Finally, navigate to the AutoCAD version you were using (e.g., AutoCAD 2021).

After reaching the specific AutoCAD version folder, you should be able to find a subfolder called “ACAD-x“, where “x” represents the version number. Inside this subfolder, you will find your recovery files with .sv$ extension.

Recovering AutoCAD Files

Now that you have located your recovery files, you can proceed to recover your unsaved work in AutoCAD. Here’s how:

1. Open AutoCAD on your computer.
2. If prompted with a message stating that an automatic save file was found, select “Yes” to recover your work from the recovery file. If not prompted, proceed to the next step.
3. In AutoCAD, click on the “File” tab in the top menu bar.
4. Select “Drawing Utilities” from the drop-down menu.
Note: Depending on your AutoCAD version, the option may be named differently.

Look for options like “Recover” or “Drawing Recovery Manager. “

5. Choose the “Open” option from the Drawing Utilities menu.
6. Navigate to the folder where your recovery files are located.
7. Select the appropriate recovery file (.sv$) and click “Open. “
8. If multiple recovery files are available, choose the most recent one.
9. AutoCAD will open the recovered file, allowing you to continue working from where you left off.

Remember to save your recovered file immediately to avoid any further loss of work. You can use the “Save As” option in AutoCAD to create a new saved version of your drawing.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we discussed the location of AutoCAD recovery files and how to access them. We learned about the default location where AutoCAD saves recovery files and also explored manual methods to find them. Additionally, we covered the steps to recover unsaved work using these files in AutoCAD.

By understanding where AutoCAD stores recovery files and how to recover them, you can minimize data loss and protect your valuable work. Remember to regularly save your drawings while working in AutoCAD to avoid relying solely on recovery files for data retrieval.