Mac AI DataRecovery Files Unopenable

Question

I closed an AI file wo saving, that's on me. I did however have file recovery/autosave enabled.

On Mac, when I navigate to .../Library/Preferences/AdobeIllustrator (version) Settings/en_US/DataRecovery there are all my autosaved files, BUT they do not have extensions and cannot be opened by Illustrator.

What good is autosave if it's unusable?!?

Illustrator can't open a .aid extension nor can I change the files extensions to .ai and open them. It's completely useless. Illustrator gives me a pop-up saying that those files are an unknown file type and can't be opened. I thought the built-in feature would work and it simply doesn't. I spent an hour trolling Google for an answer and came up empty-handed.

Ton Frederiks · Accepted Answer

It is not called autosave, but data recovery, it only works to recover files when your machine/Illustrator crashes.

You cannot use that for backups.

I use the CC files folder on my machine to save files in that I am currently working on. It is a local folder that gets synched to the Creative Cloud. It saves versions everytime you save and keeps them at least 10 days.

But I also backup my machine from time to time.

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