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howhardcanthisbe
Participating Frequently
April 3, 2016
Answered

How to open a .aid file?

  • April 3, 2016
  • 5 replies
  • 60172 views

Computer didn't crash I just closed an illustrator file without saving it*. Autosave is set up for every 2 minutes and I can see the autosaved version .aid but can't figure how to open it.

Thanks for any help on this.

(*I accidentally closed it because there is some key combination which I inadvertently do which changes my keyboard from English to French and then  the Z becomes X - so when I do control Z I've actually done control X - wish I knew how I did that).

    Correct answer Andy Swift

    You can just open the file with Adobe Illustrator.

    To open the file on a Mac, select it, cmd-I to "Get Info" and choose open with Adobe Illustrator (click "Change All..." while you're at it so the next time you won't have to do this step).

    • Do NOT change the extension

    • Do NOT quit Illustrator or the file will be deleted

    If you want to restart or do something else that requires you to quit Illustrator, you can just duplicate the .aid file and let the original get deleted.

    5 replies

    L
    Lise James
    New Participant
    January 4, 2022

    Illustrator is regularly crashing on me as well and I can not recover the [Recovery].ai files. I bought this Mac laptop because it was supposed to be a workhorse for graphic designers. In actuallity I wish I could find out the reason for all of the crashes instead of constantly losing my time-consuming hard work. Ugh... Makes me question why I am working with a program that resides on the cloud, but does not have the capability of actually saving my work to the cloud with an easy to recover option after these numerous crashes. I have not been able to open the .aid files either. 
    Here is a screen shot from the latest wheel-of-death crash. 

      Monika Gause
      Monika Gause
      Community Expert
      January 4, 2022

      Please contact Customer Care and have take a look at it. I have Macbooks as well and Illustrator is regularly running on them for days.

      M
      Martha5F98
      New Participant
      February 10, 2021

      I have tried to recover a file that was unsaved when illustator crashed. I followed the suggestions on this thread to open the .aid file, it was trying to open the .aid file on illustrator but then stopped spinning and I watched the file disappear. Illustrator hasn't actually crashed and I haven't had any pop ups but the file has gone. Is there any way to retrieve it or atleast try to prevent this happening again? I am running the programme on a new MacBook Pro M1 Big Sur 11.1 with plenty of storage but illustrator is crashing reguarly.

       

      Any help would be great!

        Mike_Gondek10189183
        Mike_Gondek10189183
        Community Expert
        November 18, 2016

        The keyboard command you are likely encountering is under your system preference >> keyboard >> shortcuts tab >> Input Sources

         

        Was happening to me with Arabic, when that language installed.

         

        I also recommend to change this,

        so you can see and confirm up on top right in finder you language options.

        A
        Andy SwiftCorrect answer
        Inspiring
        November 18, 2016

        You can just open the file with Adobe Illustrator.

        To open the file on a Mac, select it, cmd-I to "Get Info" and choose open with Adobe Illustrator (click "Change All..." while you're at it so the next time you won't have to do this step).

        • Do NOT change the extension

        • Do NOT quit Illustrator or the file will be deleted

        If you want to restart or do something else that requires you to quit Illustrator, you can just duplicate the .aid file and let the original get deleted.

          N
          nickt53978232
          New Participant
          February 20, 2024

          The method works well. Thanks a lot 🇺🇦

          0
          0_xMx_0
          New Participant
          May 27, 2024

          Same here, illustrator is greyed and cannot be a choice on how ot open the file

            Jacob Bugge
            Jacob Bugge
            Community Expert
            April 3, 2016

            howhard,

            What happens if you change the name and also change the extension to .ai or to .ait?

            I am afraid the OS may have a life of its own, and that the language change can happen at any time, especially if you have a keyboard version that is another language (such as FR) than the OS (such as EN).

            H
            howhardcanthisbeAuthor
            Participating Frequently
            April 3, 2016

            Thanks Jacob, Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to try it. My first attempts said "the file is in use" so I closed Illustrator and the .aid files vanished. I have now recreated the work.

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