How does auto-save work REALLY?

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1

Google search and reading the manual both have been very unhelpful. The auto-save feature is a mystery to me.

Sometimes I see multiple autosaves of the same file, sometimes I don’t. Why is there that inconsistency?

2

It’s fairly simple, each time you open a file it will create a new auto-save.
Other questions :slight_smile: ?

3

YES. WTF DO YOU MEAN? AND WHY IS THAT THE BEHAVOIR?!?!?! (rhetorical question).

  1. So, ok. I open a project file called my_model.blend.
  2. I work for over two minutes (assuming autosave is at 2 minute interval).
  3. I look at autosaves and find one file named my_model_98458_autosave.blend.
  4. Close the file.
  5. Open the file my_model.blend again and work for over two minutes.
  6. Look at autosaves I’ll see:

my_model_98458_autosave.blend
my_model_48126_autosave.blend

Yes?

4

The auto save system in Blender has all sorts of terrible oversights and should not be relied upon. You WILL permanently lose data if you make a single mistake. Always keep a manual revision number in the file name which you increment from time to time e.g. mymodel_r1.blend, mymodel_r2.blend and NEVER open a file with the intent of using it as a template for a different work. Always copy the file and give it a new name first or you will trash your work as soon as you habitually Ctrl+S.

5

I don’t recommend using Blender’s built-in auto-save; there’s an add-on that works much better:

6

First:

Auto Save

Enables Auto Save. Tells Blender to automatically save a backup copy of your work-in-progress files to the Temporary Directory.

…and:
I don’t know the behavior of windows or mac after a complete computer shutdown / reboot… but on unixoid systems the temp directory is usally cleared of all data after this… so it is the obligation of the user to set this to something which might not be deleted… So it is always a good idea to initialise a saved version of your data by yourself…
…and this is in general and not specially related to blender…

So see the auto-save just as a last fallback… so you might recover some data (from two minutes ago)… (and mostly the real thing happend 10 seconds ago :wink: )

Some people actually disable this to not be disturbed in their work ever two minutes…

7

Yes that’s it !

The goal of autosave is to make backup while you work, so if you don’t manually save often and blender crash you can open that file through the menu File / Recover / Auto save.

Having multiple files might be confusing but I’m pretty sure it’s there in case you open the same file in different blender instance. I’ve seen people with more than 5 blender open at the same time…

as @Okidoki pointed out, in linux system the temp folder is erased on reboot so by default autosaves doesn’t help when the computer shuts down, but it’s possible to change that.

In any case , it’s really a backup that if everything goes fine you never need to touch. It’s not a feature like some software have to save your working file so you don’t have to think about it.

Hope that helps !

PS :

Lol, come on :smiley:

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