Hey, so I was in the middle of drawing a picture and inkscape crashed out of nowhere, only giving me 3 options: Search for solution to the crash and close Inkscape, Close Inkscape, and determine solution. I chose the third option and inkscape closed automatically (I hadn't saved at all and I had been working on it for almost 2 hours ) So I was wondering if there was a way for me to recover my previous work even though I hadn't saved it because I feel like my soul has been ripped out of my body xD

Hi Zack,

usually, when Inkscape crashes, it will tell you where it saved a backup file. When Inkscape crashes really badly, though, it won't even be able to save that backup file. So if you didn't get a popup with a hint about the location of the emergency save, then, no, there is no backup

You can avoid this by activating the autosave feature: Edit -> Preferences -> Input / Output -> Autosave.

Well you could set up automatic saving in the preferences (Shift+Ctrl+P) somewhere.
If it crashed maybe inkscape created an emergency save -check the folder of the original file, if
there was one it would end with the date&time indication of the crash.
Depends on preferences set and some luck with crashing.
Like, in 0.91 you can have sudden crashes without any given error message or emergency save.


Two hours lost?
Deal with it.
Do you know how many times had I such a problem? Not once.
(Well I never set up auto saving to save my beck nor felt I'm working on something that important...)
But with every redrawing the process gets faster and you avoid hesitation and unnecessary mistakes you had to make in the process.

Speaking of unnecessary mistakes, run clean up document/vacuum defs in the file menu every once in a while.
Used to be the number one crash factor for me on 0.48 -because a bug with the gradient editor filled the document with tons of unused defs.)

Better luck next time!

Save! Save! Save!

Also Tips to Avoid Performance Issues (Slowdowns, Freezing, Crashing, etc.)