what are the .BAK files that are created with every drawing?

[MikeP]

I cant stand these .BAK files. They clutter my folders and just make it hard to find things. what are they, and do i need them?

[matt41129]

A word to the wise.. KEEP THEM.. i thought the same thing but they have saved my butt many times.. If your drawing crashes or you need to revert to a previuos version of the drawing you can rename the file extension .bak to .dwg and they are a copy of your drawing.. They are very useful.

[matt41129]

Srry didnt answer your inital question. They are backups of your drawings. Autocad is set up to autosave every so many minutes and the .bak file is the result. They are pretty much saftey nets for your drawings. Atleast that is how i look at it. To use them just rename the extension to .dwg and there ya go..

[ReMark]

You can set AutoCAD to not create .bak files if you wish. Go to Tools > Options > Open and Save tab. Under the heading File Safety Precautions uncheck Create backup copy with each save. Done. Now if you ever lose, overwrite or corrupt a drawing file don't come here crying about it. Because if you do we will rain down such scorn and ridicule on you that you'll wish you hadn't let on how dumb you really were. Agreed?

[LifeoRiley0]

You can set AutoCAD to not create .bak files if you wish. Go to Tools > Options > Open and Save tab. Under the heading File Safety Precautions uncheck Create backup copy with each save. Done. Now if you ever lose, overwrite or corrupt a drawing file don't come here crying about it. Because if you do we will rain down such scorn and ridicule on you that you'll wish you hadn't let on how dumb you really were. Agreed?

 

 

Well said...........

[ReMark]

Thanks LifeO. I've been feeling pretty ornery lately. Time to get real with the facts of CAD life.

[MikeP]

is there a way so they can be created as hidden files or saved into a different backup directory?

[dbroada]

You can set AutoCAD to not create .bak files if you wish. Go to Tools > Options > Open and Save tab. Under the heading File Safety Precautions uncheck Create backup copy with each save. Done. Now if you ever lose, overwrite or corrupt a drawing file don't come here crying about it. Because if you do we will rain down such scorn and ridicule on you that you'll wish you hadn't let on how dumb you really were. Agreed?

do you want me to answer

 

Mike, I don't think you can change where they go.

[Cad64]

is there a way so they can be created as hidden files or saved into a different backup directory?

 

Check out the Express Tools MOVEBAK command.

[ReMark]

I would strongly suggest you do NOT want to change .bak files to hidden. However, if you really want to a simple batch file could be written that would do the trick.

 

Personally, I prefer to have a .bak file created. I consider it to be a form of cheap insurance. There are other forum members who have never created a single .bak file and see no reason to do so. Each to his own. However, if they really bother you that much (I must ask...why?) then condition yourself to delete all of them on a daily or weekly basis (that's what I do). Maybe you can do this as a part of your weekly backup procedure. You do back up your .dwg files to an external source or network, right?

[skipsophrenic]

Always have a bak files - ALWAYS, If i lost my BAK's then i'd be in trouble. the

other thing is if you don't like them - once you have completed your drawing

and you know theey're safe, add an extra folder in that project directory and

keep all the BAK's there. Trust me ONLY after completion of a drawing would I

say move the BAK file. Just DON'T Delete it

[dbroada]

I was going to let it go but here goes.

 

I mostly work in SDI mode and have had need of the autosave files and have had to recall previous files from our server. I cannot remember the last time I wished I had a .bak file. The times I needed them they were already out of date as I QSAVE quite often.

 

Just curious, under what circumstances do you use the .bak file?

[ReMark]

For some reason only known to the CAD gods I deleted a drawing file. My system was set up so a deletion bypassed the Recycle Bin. I was able to retrieve the last rendition of the file by resurrecting the .bak file. I think I've done this twice in my entire CAD life.

[skipsophrenic]

I keep all BAK's incase further down the line they say oh - we wanted it like revision "B" when i'm working on revision "F" so i Simply open up the back file with "-B" on the end copy the detail I need - problem solved!.

[manhattan]

bak (sorry couldnt resist) to the original question, if you have trouble finding the file you want why not sort by type, that way all your baks will be separate from your dwgs

[skipsophrenic]

that works.

[LifeoRiley0]

We only delete .bak files once the job has been As Built and is going to the archive.

[dbroada]

I keep all BAK's incase further down the line they say oh - we wanted it like revision "B" when i'm working on revision "F" so i Simply open up the back file with "-B" on the end copy the detail I need - problem solved!.

so how does that work? You keep Drawing1-revB.bak but not Drawing1-revB.deg?

[dbroada]

For some reason only known to the CAD gods I deleted a drawing file. My system was set up so a deletion bypassed the Recycle Bin. I was able to retrieve the last rendition of the file by resurrecting the .bak file. I think I've done this twice in my entire CAD life.

yep, bak files are good for fingure trouble. I don't advocate having no safety net but ours is the network backup, not the .bak files.

[skipsophrenic]

so how does that work? You keep Drawing1-revB.bak but not Drawing1-revB.deg?

 

Yeah we do, but i work on a copy of the bak, that way should

something go wrong, i havent messed up the archive dwg, or the

archive bak. - since that happened to me before i knew about

cadtutor.net i wasn't able to ask advice on it. when that happened i

had to get the hardcopy plot and redraw it from that, since then i'm

what you would call over-cautious.

 

Better to be safe than sorry i say.