Lost my file (split)

[Jeanette]

New User trying to learn Affinity after decades of Freehand. I built an Affinity doc using tutorial support, very happy with it, then hit a wrong key and lost all my hard work. Tried "control z" tried "delete" tried to get back to the file I was working on. I think the error was hitting "new artboard" ... I could not escape nor return to my file, which was lost to the ages. Speaking of ages, I am 77, have been a Freehand lover since early '80s, have MX on my old computer. Newer computer Mogave 10.14.6 accepted Affinity and works fine. Except of course of the difficulty I just outlined. 

[unni]

In Affinity Photo, there is an auto save feature. It may be available in other Affinity applications also. The autosave time is default 300 seconds.
This is under EDIT>PREFERENCE>PERFORMANCE File recovery interval. So every 300 seconds it saves the file.

For Affinity Photo, the file is saved with an extension .autosave and file name is year date time .

In Windows 7, The location is C:\Users\unni\AppData\Roaming\Affinity\Photo\1.0\autosave
(Unni is my user name. For you, it will be different depending on how the windows is configured)

The AppData folder is hidden. So you have to go to TOOLS>FOLDER OPTIONS>VIEW in Windows  and enable show hidden files,folders and drives.

Once inside this autosave folder, find the file and copy it and then paste in desktop (for example).
Rename the file by changing the extension from .autosave to .afphoto.
Example : 20180909175347.autosave   TO  20180909175347.afphoto
(For Affinity Designer the .afphoto extension may be different. Look your other saved files for this data.)

Now open the file in the application. That's it !!

If you have MAC OS, it will also have a similar location from where you can recover the file.

Hope this helps !

@Jeanette

 

[Palatino]

1 hour ago, unni said:

If you have MAC OS, …

/Users/Jeanette/Library/Containers/com.seriflabs.affinitydesigner/Data/Library/Application Support/autosave

[walt.farrell]

56 minutes ago, unni said:

Once inside this autosave folder, find the file and copy it and then paste in desktop (for example).
Rename the file by changing the extension from .autosave to .afphoto.
Example : 20180909175347.autosave   TO  20180909175347.afphoto
(For Affinity Designer the .afphoto extension may be different. Look your other saved files for this data.)

Now open the file in the application. That's it !!

That will work, but it should not be necessary in most cases.

1. If an Affinity application has crashed, and autosave information is available for a file that was never saved previously, the application will prompt you to restore it when you reopen the application. Just say yes.
2. Or, if you were working on a file that had been saved previously, when you next try to open that file in the Affinity application you will be prompted  to restore the autosave information. Again, just say yes.

I think that if you have your Affinity Preferences set to reopen documents when you launch the application, that even #2 will be handled when you restart the application.

[markw]

I don’t really have anything much to add to what unni, Platatino and walt have already said, just that if helps to identify your target file, the numbers breakdown like this;
Example file: 20180909175347.autosave = 2018     09        09    17:53:47
                                                                              Year   Month   Day     Time

[R C-R]

16 hours ago, unni said:

If you have MAC OS, it will also have a similar location from where you can recover the file.

The location will vary slightly depending on if you bought the Affinity app from the Affinity or Mac store, but in my experience the trick of changing the extension from autosave to afdesign or afphoto often does not work:

 

Besides, unless the Affinity app crashes, the autosave file is deleted when the file is closed.

[alecia]

On 10/15/2019 at 1:59 PM, Palatino said:

/Users/Jeanette/Library/Containers/com.seriflabs.affinitydesigner/Data/Library/Application Support/autosave

what if you"re on a windows?

[alecia]

On 10/15/2019 at 12:50 PM, unni said:

In Affinity Photo, there is an auto save feature. It may be available in other Affinity applications also. The autosave time is default 300 seconds.
This is under EDIT>PREFERENCE>PERFORMANCE File recovery interval. So every 300 seconds it saves the file.

For Affinity Photo, the file is saved with an extension .autosave and file name is year date time .

In Windows 7, The location is C:\Users\unni\AppData\Roaming\Affinity\Photo\1.0\autosave
(Unni is my user name. For you, it will be different depending on how the windows is configured)

The AppData folder is hidden. So you have to go to TOOLS>FOLDER OPTIONS>VIEW in Windows  and enable show hidden files,folders and drives.

Once inside this autosave folder, find the file and copy it and then paste in desktop (for example).
Rename the file by changing the extension from .autosave to .afphoto.
Example : 20180909175347.autosave   TO  20180909175347.afphoto
(For Affinity Designer the .afphoto extension may be different. Look your other saved files for this data.)

Now open the file in the application. That's it !!

If you have MAC OS, it will also have a similar location from where you can recover the file.

Hope this helps !

@Jeanette

 

@unni where do you go to tools>folder options>view at? in affinity program or on the computer itself?

 

[Palatino]

12 hours ago, alecia said:

@unni where do you go to tools>folder options>view at? in affinity program or on the computer itself?

 

 

On 10/15/2019 at 6:50 PM, unni said:

The AppData folder is hidden. So you have to go to TOOLS>FOLDER OPTIONS>VIEW in Windows  and enable show hidden files,folders and drives.

 

[unni]

@alecia as mentioned by @Palatino above, hope you have figured it by now. If not, i can take screen shots and post it.

[unni]

The windows screen shot for changing folder options and location of the autosave file of Affinity Photo is shown in the screen shot below.

@alecia

[alecia]

thank you so i just now saw the file pop up in my search. but when i clicked it i saw this error messaged (see below) so i went to recycle bin and restored everything i deleted from that date i last had access to the file. now none of those images are in the file so idk how its linked but i was able to retrieve the file once i restored.  now my question is how do i find out what its linked to and unlink it. i want to delete clutter from my computer since I'm not using any external hard drive

[Dan C]

8 hours ago, alecia said:

now my question is how do i find out what its linked to and unlink it

Do you have any embedded documents/images in your .afdesign file?

[alecia]

hi Dan,

i do have a photo in the document but i didn't delete that photo i dont believe but ill double check.

[unni]

Try to open it in notepad.

Take a copy of the file 20191103092525.autosave and save it on desktop.
Now right click on this copy and select Open from the menu.
click the mouse at :        Select a program from a list of installed program.
Press Okay
Now, in the dialog box, untick :     Always use the selected program to open this kind of file.
Click Okay.

You will be able to see the location of the linked file location.
Here is a sample below.
If the referred file is not in the location, then it may not be possible to retrieve.
You have to locate it from the drive and put it back in the referred location with the same name.

[alecia]

@unni ok ill give it a try thanks