Photoshop: Where is the Autosave?

If you are a photographer, illustrator or digital artist, you will know that the limit of layers you can create in Photoshop for a single job is practically unlimited. Some layers require only a few minutes of dedication, while others involve an investment of hours of work.

Fortunately, most editing software has an important auto-save feature to prevent loss of information.

Where is the autosave feature in Photoshop?

The autosave feature in Photoshop can be found in the “Edit” menu, then in “Preferences” and finally in the “File Management” tab. Here you can activate the autosave, the location (on the hard disk or in the cloud) and the time interval between each autosave in minutes.

Why is autosave important in Photoshop?

Autosave in Photoshop is important because it prevents loss of work in case of system or application failure.

Adobe Photoshop is a very resource-intensive software and, if the PC does not have them, it can lead to unexpected crashes. These can be due to system incompatibilities, working with large files or overloading the memory when working with several demanding software at the same time. If you have ever worked with Photoshop, Illustrator and Adobe Premiere open at the same time, you will know what I am talking about.

Getting back to the subject at hand, the auto-save feature will create backup copies of your work at regular intervals, which means that even if errors occur, your work will not be lost.

A PSD job can contain dozens of layers, documents, settings, etc. If all the work is lost without a backup, it can be difficult, if not impossible, to recover it.

Therefore, Photoshop autosave is an essential tool to keep your work safe. As a professional you should enable this feature to avoid unpleasant surprises.

What happens if the hard disk fails?

In most cases, if the hard disk fails, all data stored on it will be lost. This means that all documents, photos, videos, music, etc. on the hard disk will be deleted. Therefore, it is important to have a backup copy of all data stored on the hard drive, so that you can recover it if a failure occurs.

Photoshop autosave will not work in case of hardware failure if we have chosen to autosave to the hard disk and not to the cloud. Therefore, it is important to have backups on both the hard drive and cloud storage services for added file security.

Fortunately, Adobe Creative Cloud offers secure cloud storage services for saving Photoshop files and other Adobe software, which means that a backup is always available in case of hardware failure.

In Photoshop we can choose to auto-save simultaneously to the cloud and to the hard drive.

What happens if we haven’t saved files to the cloud and our hard drive fails?

If we have not saved the files to the cloud and our hard drive fails, then the files will be lost. This means that all documents, photos, videos, music, etc., that are on the hard drive will be deleted.

Sometimes it is possible to recover a crashed hard drive using specialized software or recovery services, but partial or complete data recovery is usually not guaranteed.

For what reasons can we lose our work?

There are several reasons why we may lose our work. These reasons include system failures, hardware failures, network errors, power failures, application failures, computer viruses, and so on.

For this reason, it is important to have a backup of our work in a secure location, such as an external drive, a cloud storage service or a network backup.

Photoshop auto-save is also a useful tool to prevent loss of work.

Recovering unsaved Photoshop files from recent files

In most versions of Photoshop, unsaved files can be recovered from the Recent Files list. To access this list, go to File> Recent Files. Here you will find a list of the most recent files that have been opened in Photoshop. If you find one that you have not saved, you can open it and save it with a new name to recover your changes.

Autosave is enabled by default in the latest versions of Photoshop.

Fortunately, this means that Photoshop will create backup copies of your work at regular intervals (10 minutes by default). If a crash or application error occurs, these backups can be recovered to prevent loss of work.

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