How to Recover Unsaved, Deleted or Corrupted AutoCAD DWG Files 2023?

AutoCAD is a design and drawing software to create professional 2D or 3D files, which is widely applied among architects, engineers and other professionals. The native files created in AutoCAD is saved in DWG format and it always takes a long time and great effort to finish a DWG file, if your AutoCAD DWG files are left unsaved, deleted or corrupted, that would a disaster.

Yet, it is still lucky that there are solutions to recover an unsaved, damaged or restore deleted AutoCAD DWG file on Mac, Windows, even external USB device.

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Recover Deleted or Lost AutoCAD DWG Files

• Recover deleted, missing, lost, formatted AutoCAD DWG files
• Restore 200+ file types: docs, images, videos, audios, archives, etc.
• Repair corrupted or damaged video files
• Support data recovery from both internal and external hard drive
• Preview files before recovery (video, graphic, document, audio)
• Filter files with keyword, file size, date created, date modified
• Recover files to local drive or to cloud (Dropbox, OneDrive, GoogleDrive, pCloud, Box)
• High recovery rate

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How to Recover Unsaved AutoCAD DWG Files?

Solution #1 Recover Unsaved AutoCAD DWG with Auto Save

You may have realized that lots of professional programs add a feature of Auto Save, allowing users to auto save files every 5 or 10 minutes to a preset location, like Adobe Photshop, Micorsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and AutoCAD is no exception.

With AutoCAD’s Auto Save feature, you can recover unsaved DWG files on mac and windows pc too. But first of all, you need to make sure you have enabled this feature.

How to Check If AutoCAD Auto Save is ON?

1. Run AutoCAD.
2. Click on the AutoCAD icon, go to Option.
3. Go to Open and Save, check if the box before Automatic save is checked, if yes, you can recover unsaved DWG file, if not, go to other options for dwg recovery.

Steps to Recover Unsaved AutoCAD DWG Files with Auto Save

1. Run AutoCAD.
2. Click on Options.
3. Go to Files>Automatic Save File Location, copy Auto Save location.
4. Locate the unsaved AutoCAD files.
   For Windows 10 users, Press WIN+R, paste the auto save location, you will be navigated to unsaved AutoCAD DWG files.
   For macOS users, go to Apple menu>Go>Go to Folder, paste the auto save location.
5. Then open the unsaved AutoCAD DWG file in dwg or bak format with AutoCAD, save the file.

Solution #2 Recover Unsaved AutoCAD DWG with .BAK File

AutoCAD embeds rich features for better user experience, including the one “Create backup copy with each save”, which allows you to recover an unsaved AutoCAD DWG file with backup .bak file. If you have enabled this feature, you can follow the steps to recover your unsaved AutoCAD DWG files.

Steps to Recover Unsaved AutoCAD DWG File with .BAK

1. Go to the location where you save the DWG file.
2. Find the file with .bak, then rename to change its extension to .dwg.
3. Click the Save button to save the file. Done.

Solution #3 Recover Unsaved AutoCAD DWG from Temp Folder

You can also go to Temp folder to check if the unsaved AutoCAD DWG files are there, if above 2 methods failed to recover your unsaved AutoCAD DWG files.

For macOS users

1. Go to Finder>Applications>Utilities.
2. Run the program Terminal.
3. Input “open $TMPDIR” to Terminal. 
4. Then press Enter to run the command, you will be directed to the Temp folder and go to TemporaryItems. 
5. Find the AutoCAD files in tmp format, open with AutoCAD, save the files for recovery.

For Windows users

1. Open Windows Search.
2. Enter “%temp%” into the search box.
3. Now check to see if the unsaved AutoCAD files are in the temp folder.

Recover Formatted/Deleted AutoCAD DWG Files on Mac or Windows.

What if we lost AutoCAD DWG files on a formatted USB or hard drive, or just deleted them by accident? No worries, we can get them back too. What you need is a piece of dedicated dwg recovery software, because there is no shortcut for this, unless you have a backup.

Cisdem Data Recovery is a Mac & Windows program to restore files lost under different situation. It allows users to restore files from both internal and external hard drive, that’s to say, you can not only recover deleted dwg files from your Mac or Windows, but also from other external storage devices, like SD card, USB, etc.

Main Features of Cisdem Data Recovery

• Recover files lost due to different causes: poweroff, system crash, deletion, formatting, etc.
• Restore files from internal and external hard drive
• Repair damaged video files
• Apply both quick and deep scanning mode
• Support restoring 200+ types of file: dwg, psd, pdf, word, excel, image, video, audi, archive, etc.
• Preview files before recovery
• Quickly search files with keyword, file size, date created, date modified
• Fast scanning
• High file recovery rate
• Recover files to local drive or to Dropbox, OneDrive, GoogleDrive, pCloud, Box

Steps to Recover Formatted/Deleted AutoCAD DWG Files on Mac or Windows

1. Download and install Cisdem Data Recovery to your Mac or Windows.
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2. Choose the drive.
   Go to Disk Data Recovery, select the hard drive that stored the formatted or deleted AutoCAD DWG files. 
3. Scan the drive and find the files.
   Click Search for lost files button to look through the drive, go to Type>Pictures>DWG, or you can use filter to find specific files quickly.
   
4. Preview and recover DWG files.
   After the scanning, double click on the DWG file to preview, then select them and click Recover to get your deleted DWG files back.

Notes:

In the case that you have found all deleted dwg files before the scanning process finishes, click on the Stop button to end the scanning, then Recover button will appear, you can continue with dwg recovery then.

How to Recover Corrupted AutoCAD DWG Files Online

Struggling to open your AutoCAD DWG files? Often, it is simply because the file is corrupted or damaged for some reasons. If such a disaster strikes, you can try to repair a corrupted CAD file online.

Recoverytoolbox offers both desktop and web tools to recover damaged AutoCAD drawings, if you have just one or several files to be restored, you can do it online without installing any software. However, you should pay attention to these: upload CAD files will be saved for 10 days on it server, repaired AutoCAD will be available in an uncertain time and you have to wait.

Steps to Recover Corrupted AutoCAD DWG Files Online

1. Visit dwg.recoverytoolbox.com/online/.
2. Click on Select File to upload the corrupted CAD file.
3. Enter your email address to receive the repaired file.
4. Click on Next Step.
5. Once get the email, download the CAD file to your Mac or Windows.

Conclusion

Unlike others, recovering data such as AutoCAD DWG, photos, videos and others requires a professional data recovery program to do the job. Without a backup, you won't be able to get them back without any tools, but even without a backup, a data recovery software makes it possible to get your formatted and deleted data back.