Back Up and Recover Files

When you encounter system errors, power outages, Inkscape bugs, or simply when you forgot to save, your files can be lost or corrupted. In Inkscape there are a few options that prevents accidental data loss:

  • The Save prompt asks you whether to save unsaved changes before exiting

  • The Overwrite prompt asks you whether a file should be overwritten if a file exists with the same name

  • Autosave saves open documents at fixed time intervals to a folder

  • Emergency Save saves your working files when Inkscape crashes with a crash dialog

See also

Different types of Inkscape crashes and how to deal with them.

Autosave

Autosave is the process of saving open documents at fixed time intervals into a folder. The auto-saved files are Inkscape SVG files. To avoid conflicts, the filename is composed with the following components, separated by dashes:

  • automatic-save

  • User ID

  • Date and time

  • Inkscape process ID

  • Document index

The user and process IDs are generated by your computer. The document index is the index number of the documents you opened in the same session. For instance, if you opened 2 documents, the autosave files will be numbered 1 and 2.

Autosave files are not presented in the user interface, but you can find, open and manage them with your file manager. After opening an autosave file, you can then overwrite the original file with it.

To interact with autosave files:

To

Do one of the following

Open the autosave folder

  1. Open the Preferences.

  2. Navigate to Input/Output ‣ Autosave.

  3. Click on the folder icon to the right of the Autosave directory:.

Overwrite the original file

  1. Select File ‣ Save As… or press CtrlCmdShiftS.

  2. Locate the original file and click on it.

  3. Click Save.

The file is now overwritten by the autosave, and subsequent saves will write data to the original file.

See also

There are some adjustable settings for the Autosave feature. See Autosave in the Preferences section.

Emergency Save

When Inkscape crashes and a crash dialog appears, Inkscape does an emergency save of your file to:

  • If you saved your document before: The folder you previously saved to.

  • If you haven’t saved before: Your home folder.

Todo

  • Add crash dialog screenshot here.

  • Add home folder term.

The emergency save file will be named with the following elements:

  • The filename. If it hasn’t been saved before, it will be named New Document followed by a number.

  • The date and time down to milliseconds.

  • The amount of saves of the file. If the file is opened twice and contains different modifications, this value of the autosave files will be .0 and .1.

See also

Let the Inkscape team know about the crash by reporting the crash before closing Inkscape.

Todo

Add welcome dialog with emergency save screenshot here.

After you restart Inkscape:

  • If you enabled the Welcome Dialog, you will see the emergency save file in the Recent Files list, with the label Emergency Save to the right of the entry.

  • If you have dismissed or disabled the Welcome Dialog, you can find the file in the File ‣ Open Recent menu.

When you open the emergency save file, you will notice that Inkscape removes the suffix, and presents it as a modified original file. Saving the file at this point will overwrite the original file. However the emergency save file wouldn’t be deleted automatically; you have to do this yourself in your file manager.

Warning

It is possible that Inkscape crashes without a crash dialog. In this case emergency save files will not be created, and you can only rely on the autosaves mentioned in the last section.