Here’s a quick tip on the “Save Incremental” feature in Blender and why you should use it.
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Save Incremental
The “Save Incremental” feature was introduced in Blender 4.0 and allows us to save our progress in .Blend files as we go. When using the traditional “save” feature in Blender, we write over our previous file.
It becomes difficult to recover our progress from before that save.
To save incremental in Blender, go to File – Save Incremental in the top bar or use the shortcut “Ctrl Alt S”
When we press “Save Incremental” we save a new copy of the Blender file but keep the previous version. The new file name has a number added to the end of it to show which file is older.
The new saved copy will save in the same file location as our previous version. There is no need to choose a location after the file is saved the first time.
The higher the number at the end of the file name, the newer the version. We can go back to each place we saved our progress and continue from there if we made a mistake.
Blender File Size and Storage
Each subsequent Blender file will be stored at its current size. So, storing many versions of the same project will take up a lot more space.
If you’re looking for a cheap way to add additional storage space, here’s a great external hard drive at a reasonable price.
When to Use ‘Save Incremental’
We don’t want to use “Save Incremental” every time we save. We should use it during major turning points in our project.
If you are thinking about experimenting with an idea in your scene, but aren’t sure if it’s what you want – Save Incremental is for you.
With minor changes that you just want to save in case of a crash, the regular “Save” feature will work and won’t require additional storage.
Conclusion
Save Incremental is a newer feature in Blender which allows us to quickly (with one click) save a sequential copy of our current Blender file. It doesn’t overwrite the previous version.
This is great for when we want to experiment with something in our scene but want to be able to return to a previously saved version of the Blender file.
Bookmark this site because I’m constantly putting out new quick Blender tips. Stay creative!
Author:
Brandon Stocking
