SOLIDWORKS Save, Backup, and Auto-recover Options

Have you ever lost work simply because you forgot to save your changes? Have you ever changed your design and couldn’t redo the changes to a previous model, so you had to start over? Then let me show you how to guarantee you are keeping your designs safe by setting up SOLIDWORKS save, backup and auto-recover settings in your system options.

SOLIDWORKS has multiple settings for backing up your files. These settings can be accessed easily from Tools > Options > System Options > Backup/Recover.

Save, auto-recover, and backup settings in SOLIDWORKS system options

SOLIDWORKS Auto-recover Options

In the first section, Auto-recover, you can set a time frequency for saving auto-recover files for your current document and the location that these files are saved. This will save a .SWAR (SOLIDWORKS auto-recovery) file to the location that you specify. If you experience a crash and SOLIDWORKS closes, the next time you open SOLIDWORKS, the task pane shows you the auto-recovered file and you can open this file instead. However, when you save a file manually, the auto-recovery file will be deleted to free up space.

If you work with SOLIDWORKS simulation, you can save an auto-recover file after meshing and after running a simulation study to make sure you keep your meshing and results data safe in case of a crash.

SOLIDWORKS Backup Options

For the second section, backup, you can save multiple back up copies per document based on your settings up to a maximum of 10 backups per document, and specify where you want the backup files to be saved. Every time, you save a document, SOLIDWORKS saves a backup document of your file. In order to free up disk space and save new backup documents you can set backup files older than a specific date to be deleted automatically.

SOLIDWORKS Save Reminder Option

In the last section, you can set up save reminder notification, so that you get a warning from SOLIDWORKS if you haven’t saved your files for a period of time.