Can I access my recovered files even if I closed out the revive window upon relaunch?

[Stephanie5C04]

Hi I'm just starting to learn about Adobe products. I spent 5 hours working on my project and it crashed when I went to unlock a layer. I was under the impression it automatically saved to the file on my computer. But when I relaunched illustrator, I was told that I need to find the recovery file. I opened the file locator and looked around where I saved my project but it wasn't there so I exited out of the recover window. I found out afterwards that there's a whole special temporary recovery file in my documents deep into my computer. Now that pop up doesn't show up anymore. 

Is there ANYTHING I can do to recover that 5 hours worth of work! It's for a class so I'm crunched on time otherwise I wouldn't be as upset

[Monika Gause · Accepted solution]

When the popup shows, you have to immediately start the recovery process. If you don't, the file gets deleted.

Illustrator doesn't make backups - unless you save AIC (cloud) files to the Creative Cloud.

Even the recovery function won't always suceed. You have to make your own backups. You have to save your files regularly. This is crucial.

If you can't remember to make a backup, install the free version of the plugin Autosaviour.

[Ton Frederiks]

You have to save regularly.

If you save the in the Creative Clouds folder, there will be backups (for a couple of weeks).