How to recover an unsaved Photoshop or Illustrator file after a crash

Step by step

1. Leave the app closed for now

   After a crash, Photoshop and Illustrator normally reopen recovered documents on the next start. If that goes wrong, or you close the reopened document without saving, the app can delete its recovery files. Copy them first so you have a second chance.

2. Run the unsaved file finder

   Open FileFix Ultimate and choose the first item on the home screen, Find files lost when a program crashed or closed without saving. It reads the Adobe folders in your profile, including the Photoshop AutoRecover and Illustrator DataRecovery folders, along with temporary and backup locations.

3. Copy the recovery files to another disk

   Select the Photoshop or Illustrator entries, sort them by modified time and copy the newest ones to a USB stick or a second drive. The originals are only read, never moved or changed.

4. Restart the app and save immediately

   Start Photoshop or Illustrator again. If it reopens the document with a recovered label in the title, choose File, Save As at once and save under a new name in a normal folder. If it does not, open the copied file from the USB stick with File, Open and save it as a PSD or AI file.

5. Check versions and cloud copies

   If you were working on a cloud document, look for version history in the app or on the Creative Cloud website. For a file saved earlier on your PC, right-click its folder, open Properties and look at the Previous Versions tab.

6. Scan for deleted PSD and PSB files

   If no recovery copy exists, open Deleted file recovery, scan the drive that holds your profile and filter for PSD and PSB. Files found by signature come back without their original names, so use size, date and preview to find the right one.

Where Photoshop and Illustrator keep recovery data

Photoshop writes recovery copies to an AutoRecover folder inside its settings folder under AppData, Roaming, Adobe, usually named after the version, such as Adobe Photoshop 2024. The copies often use the PSB format, even for small documents, and keep a name close to the original document name. Illustrator uses a DataRecovery folder inside its own settings folder, which is nested a few levels deeper and differs between versions.

These folders are hidden and their exact path changes between releases. The unsaved file finder walks the Adobe folder in your profile and lists anything inside an AutoRecover or DataRecovery folder, labelled with the app it most likely came from.

Why restarting first can lose the recovery copy

Recovery data is meant to be temporary. When a document is saved normally or closed on purpose, the app removes its recovery copy. If the app crashes again while opening a large recovered file, or you dismiss the recovered document without thinking, the only copy can disappear. Copying the folder first takes a minute and also lets you open the file on another PC if the crash keeps happening on this one.

Scratch disk files are not a backup

Photoshop also creates large temporary files, often named Photoshop Temp followed by numbers, on its scratch disk. They hold working memory for the session, not a document you can open. FileFix Ultimate does not try to turn scratch files into images.

To protect future work, open the File Handling preferences in each app and check that automatic saving of recovery information is on, with a short interval such as five or ten minutes. The wording differs between versions.

When it won't work

• If automatic recovery saving was turned off, or the crash happened before the first recovery save, there is no copy to find.
• If you clicked Don't Save on a normal close, the app usually deleted its recovery file; only a deleted-file scan can help, and on an SSD with TRIM it often finds nothing.
• Recovery files that were only partly written when the crash happened may open with missing layers or may not open at all.
• Scratch disk temporary files cannot be turned back into a document.

How FileFix Ultimate helps

• Lists Photoshop AutoRecover and Illustrator DataRecovery copies in your profile, together with Office, Notepad and other autosave locations, in one read-only search.
• Copies the files you choose to another disk without changing the originals.
• Searches deleted space for PSD and PSB files by signature when no recovery copy is left.
• Is free for personal use with no recovery limit, works offline and does not upload your files anywhere.

Frequently asked questions