Imagine this, you are working on an important client project in Adobe Illustrator and suddenly the system crashes without giving you time to save your work. Or you have accidentally deleted the saved Illustrator file from your device. How to Recover an Illustrator File.
It all seems like a nightmare, right? But all this is possible and at any time you can lose your important Illustrator project due to human or machine error.
But, you don’t have to worry because there is still some chance that you can get your job back. We are here to help you and we would like to show you some methods with which you can of Illustrator files deleted or not saved on your computer.
As a bonus tip, we’ve also covered the steps to restore saved Illustrator files. So without further ado let’s get started.
How to Recover an Illustrator File
As we have discussed above there are three scenarios in which you may want to recover your Illustrator file, the first when you have saved over the file and now want to go back to the previous version of it.
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The second is when you have deleted the file from your computer and the third is when you have not saved the file. The methods for recover Illustrator file All three scenarios are different and we will discuss them one by one.
1. Recover unsaved Illustrator files
There are two methods to recover unsaved Illustrator files after a crash.
a) Automatic recovery
In the Illustrator software there is an automatic recovery feature that allows you recover unsaved file instantly after an accident. Just restart the software as soon as it crashes and you will see the recently unsaved file open on the screen with the file name prefixed with Recovered.
Once the file is recovered, you can save it by clicking File > Save As. It was easy, right?
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b) Recovery from backup file
Suppose after the software crashes, you relaunch it and find no unsaved recovered files in it. Don’t worry in this case you can make use of the backup files.
However, for this method to work, the backup option must be enabled in the software. If it is not enabled by default, you can enable it by following these steps.
- 1. Open the software Adobe Illustrator CC and go to Edit in the upper left corner of the board.
- 2. From here select the option Preferences > General…
- 3. Now, under General Settings, click File and clipboard management. Here check the box that says Automatically save recovery data every: and then select the time period, that is, how often you want the software to save your file in the backup.
The software gives you the opportunity to select time periods ranging from 30 seconds to 1 hour. It is recommended that you select less time to save files, 30 seconds or 1 minute is a good option.
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Once backup is enabled, the software starts saving the backup of your Adobe Illustrator files. These files are saved in the local to your computer and here is how you can find them in case you want to recover unsaved Illustrator files from backup.
Find unsaved files in the backup folder
- 1. Press Windows+R to open Execute. Now write %appdata% in the text box and press the button okay.
- 2. A new window will open and select the folder named Adobe.
- 3. Next, in Adobe go to Adobe Illustrator 23 Settings > en_us > x64. Now select the folder DataRecovery.
- 4. In DataRecovery, you will find the unsaved Illustrator file. Now click on the file and open it with Illustrator.
Once the file is open in Illustrator, you can save the file by giving it an appropriate name. This is how to recover unsaved Illustrator files after a crash. Now let’s see how you can recover deleted files from Illustrator.
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2. Restore a deleted Adobe Illustrator file
If you have saved the Illustrator file on your device and it has been accidentally deleted or deleted due to a virus attack, then you can recover it by following these steps.
a) Recover the temporarily deleted file
If you recently deleted the file without clicking Shift+Deletethen it should be in the Recycle Bin or Trash (in the case of ). Restoring deleted files from here is very easy.
Open the Recycle Bin and find the lost Illustrator file. Once you find the file, right-click on it and click Restore and the file will be restored to your computer.
The same process can be followed on Mac and restore an Illustrator file deleted from Trash as well.
b) Recover a permanently deleted Illustrator file
Sometimes you can permanently delete files by emptying the Recycle Bin or a virus attack can delete the file permanently. In such a case, you cannot restore the file from the Recycle Bin.
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However, you don’t have to worry because such files can be restored by using data recovery software. We recommend the software Stellar Data Recovery to recover these files.
However, you can also go with other software of your choice as well. Here is a quick tutorial on how to recover a deleted file from Illustrator using Stellar Data Recovery software
- 1. Launch the software and select the location where you think you have lost the file. Once the location is selected, click the button Scan to start the scanning process.
- 2. Wait for the software to complete the scan. Once the scan is completed, you can preview the recovered files by clicking on them.
- 3. After previewing, you can restore the file to your system by clicking the button Save or Recover.
This is how to recover a deleted Illustrator file, even if it is permanently deleted and not present in the Recycle Bin.
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3. Recover saved Illustrator files
Let’s say you’ve edited your Illustrator project and saved those changes but now you want to go back to the previous version of the file and all the changes. It’s easy to do this if you’re still editing the file in Illustrator, as you have the option to revert to the original version of the file in the software itself.
But, What if you want to undo changes to a Saved Over file? Don’t worry, there is still some hope that you can return to an unedited version of your file. However, for this to happen, system backup must be enabled on your device.
If system backup is enabled, it is very easy to revert to the previous version of any file. You just have to select the saved file and right click on it. By doing so new options will appear, here select the option Restore previous versions.
This will open a new window showing all previous saved versions of the file. From here, you can select the version of the file you want to revert to. Similarly, you can restore the old version of a file. Illustrator using the Time Machine feature on Mac.
Conclusion
Losing your Illustrator file can be a really bad experience, but with the methods mentioned in this review, you can easily recover them. Make sure you take quick action as soon as you lose your file because the longer it takes the chances of recovery continue to decrease.
Also, if you have not created the backup in Illustrator make sure you do so because without a backup you cannot recover Illustrator files not saved.
If you want to know other articles similar to How to Recover Deleted and Unsaved Adobe Illustrator Files you can visit the category.
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