Corrupted file after saving on Mac

[anty-no-mia]

Hi!
I need urgent help. I saved my file in the morning, closed the application (Designer) and now my file is corrupted. Can you help me restore my file?  

Working on:

MacBook Pro 2,6GHz 6-Core Intercore i7
Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB
RAM 16Bg 2667 Mhz DDR4
Sonoma 14.6.1

Affinity Designer 2.5.3

I store my files on iCloud.
 

My file is attached. 

Wrozka Zebuszka.afdesign

Edited March 10 by anty-no-mia
where I store my files

[mopperle]

1 hour ago, anty-no-mia said:

I store my files on iCloud.

This could be the problem. Work only locally, open it locally, save it locally and then move it to the cloud. Never open or save it directly from/to the cloud.

[anty-no-mia]

@mopperle Thank you, now I know.  But can anyone help me retrieve this file?

[mopperle]

Maybe somebody from serif jumps in and can help.

[Meliora spero]

The DEATH of customer data! 

The Affinity file format gives the impression of a tightly packed binary structure with little room for interpretation or recovery. Even minor inconsistencies may have disproportionate consequences, disaster, and backward compatibility is effectively impossible as a consequence of this primitive format. It suggests a design where efficiency was prioritized over resilience.

In other words, the format appears to have been designed by someone without experience in advanced file architecture — and the result has been over a decade of customer data loss. 

'Perhaps' it’s time for Affinity and Canva to acknowledge that this fragile and overly simplistic format should be retired in version 3.0 and replaced with a thoughtfully engineered and safe alternative - designed by someone outside of Serif. Trust is lost.

[jmwellborn]

@Meliora spero  which costume designer has lost his data?  

[Alfred]

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/search/&q=costumer&quick=1

[Meliora spero]

On 3/23/2025 at 4:00 PM, jmwellborn said:

@Meliora spero  which costume designer has lost his data?  

His?

None. They use CorelDRAW.

I guess that was your way of contributing.

[nickbatz]

Suggestion: in addition to what moperle says, set up a Time Machine backup. It keeps incremental (new) versions every hour, so if this happens again - or if you decide you don't like what you've done - in the worst case you can go back to a previous version.

If for whatever reason you don't want to have a backup drive connected to your Mac all the time, have it back up over your network to a NAS drive (more expensive and slower, but at least it works).

Then I'd suggest using a cloud backup service for incremental backups. I use and have only good things to say about iDrive, but there are many others.

The old line about nothing existing unless you have it stored in three places is sage advice.