Learn Methods to Recover Davinci Resolve Projects Effectively

Davinci Resolve is a versatile utility that supports video editing, color correction, audio mixing, visual effects, etc. This software was originally designed by DaVinci Systems and is now developed by Blackmagic Design. Davinci Resolve is available on multiple platforms, including Windows, macOS, and Linux. Several people use it for professional creation; thus, it could be annoying to experience a Davinci Resolve project missing. The following content shows you an overall guide on how to recover Davinci Resolve projects.

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Davinci Resolve Save File Location

When we target to recover Davinci Resolve projects, we should know some basic information first, for example: where is the save file location of Davinci Resolve? Here is a default save file path for those projects saved from Davinci Resolve.

• For Windows: C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Blackmagic Design\DaVinci Resolve\Support\Resolve Disk Database\Resolve Projects
• For macOS: /Users/username/Library/Application Support/Blackmagic Design/DaVinci Resolve/Support/Resolve Disk Database/Resolve Project

You can go to the default file path to find your saved projects. If you have changed the save file path, head to the corresponding one.

About Davinci Resolve’s File Type

Davinci Resolve has a different storage method for its cache files, project files, media, and settings. All the necessary information and files are centralized in a database or an archive, which is in the DRA file format.

For Davinci Resolve projects, they are saved in the DRP file format. Those projects are small in size because they just outline the way of media editing and organization without any media files.

Apart from the above two files, there is a DRT file that is used to save a timeline from a resolved project. This DRT file is also small in size because there is no media file in it.

Davinci Resolve Autosave

The good news is that Davinci Resolve has an automatic save feature. You can configure the Davinci Resolve autosave via the following instructions:

Step 1. Launch Davinci Resolve and click on the Davinci Resolve button in the top right corner. Choose Preference from the context menu.

Step 2. In the prompt window, you can switch to the Users section and select the Project Save and Load tab.

Step 3. Tick the Live save option to ensure the application can automatically save your project as you go. Then, you can adjust the frequency of file backup, including Perform backups every X minutes, Hourly backups for the past X hours, and Daily backups for the past X days.

Step 4. Check the backup save location. If you want to change the location, click Browse to choose your preferred location.

Step 5. After the above settings, click OK to save and apply your changes.

Why Are Davinci Resolve Projects Lost

Then, a question may come to you: why has your Davinci Resolve project disappeared? This could happen due to various reasons, but you need to have a general understanding of those reasons to prevent future data loss. Here we list some common reasons:

• Mistaken deletion: As you may save those project files on the disk, they will occupy a large data storage capacity, which affects the performance of your device. File loss could happen when you attempt to free up disk space but mistakenly delete the required project files.
• Virus infection: In addition to human errors, if your storage media is attacked by viruses or malicious software, the data stored on it is at risk of being lost. Different from file deletion, files lost in this case are permanently removed from the device. You can only get them back from previous backups or by running data recovery software. 
• Application crashing: It is unexpected to experience software crashing. This problem happens because of software bugs or interference between the computer and the program. For whatever reason, application crashing results in unsaved project loss, and can be recovered from the backups only.
• Device failure: Apart from the software issue, device problems can be a main reason as well. You may suffer from data loss due to bad sectors on a disk, blue screen of death on a device, and other causes. In this case, you can try to get files back with the help of professional data recovery software.
• Etc.

After knowing the save file location of Davinci Resolve and some common data loss causes, you can now continue reading to learn how to recover Davinci Resolve projects on both Mac and Windows.

How to Recover Davinci Resolve Projects

It could be a terrible experience after painstaking work in Davinci Resolve, only to find projects missing. Are there any approaches to get those lost Davinci Resolve projects back? Fortunately, for those locally saved files, here are several reliable methods to get them back. You can keep reading and try them one by one to find your solution.

#1. Recover Deleted Davinci Resolve Projects from the Recycle Bin Folder

Most basically, you can head to the recycle bin folder on your device. For Windows users, it is the Recycle Bin, while for Mac users the Trash. You can just double-click on the recycle bin folder to browse all your deleted files, except permanently deleted files and capacity-limit-exceeded files.

Once you have located the required Davinci Resolve project file, drag and drop it to your preferred location. Optionally, you can right-click on it to choose Restore or Put Back to recover it to the original file path.

#2. Recover Davinci Resolve Projects with Previous Backups

If you have backed up your Davinci Resolve projects before, you are fortunately able to recover missing Davinci Resolve projects from the backups easily.

• If the backups are saved on an external data storage device, connect it to your computer and copy and paste the required files to your computer.
• If the backups are stored on a cloud storage, you can log into the account and then find and download the target projects to your local computer.
• If you backed up data using the device’s built-in utilities, you should recover the files with the proper operations. For instance, Windows users can recover files using File History or Backup and Restore (Windows 7), while Mac users can recover files from Time Machine.

To back up files on Windows, MiniTool ShadowMaker can be an optimal choice. This backup utility enables you to back up files automatically in periods. Additionally, you can set the different backup types to avoid creating duplicate files. You can get this software and back up files using its excellent features for free within 30 days.

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#3. Recover Davinci Resolve Projects Using MiniTool Power Data Recovery

The last but reliable method to recover Davinci Resolve projects is choosing and running a trustworthy data recovery software. MiniTool Power Data Recovery is worth mentioning here. Among numerous secure data recovery services, this utility comes with a powerful algorithm that supports file recovery of a diverse range of file types, and various embedded features that increase data recovery efficiency to a large extent.

For whatever data loss causes, such as mistaken deletion, partition loss, device failure, virus attack, etc., MiniTool Power Data Recovery gives you a chance to recover lost files as long as they are not overwritten by new data. Now, you can get this free file recovery software by clicking the download button below, and then start to handle the Davinci Resolve projects missing issue.

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Step 1. After installing the software, you can double-click to launch it. In the main interface, you can select a partition where your lost Davinci Resolve projects were saved, by default, the C drive.

Additionally, you can choose the Select Folder button in the Recover From Specific Location section. You can navigate to the exact folder and click Select Folder to start the scanning process. In this way, the scan duration can be shortened effectively.

Depending on the file size and the disk capacity, the scan duration may last for a few minutes. Please wait patiently in order to find all the files.

Step 2. On the result page, files are listed by their original file paths by default. You can expand the Deleted Files or Lost Files classification to locate the Davinci Resolve projects.

Alternatively, you can get them quickly with the help of other features. For instance:

• Filter: You can set the filter criteria, such as file size, file type, file category, and file last modified date, to screen out the unmatched items. This is an efficient way to narrow down the file list.
• Search: This feature allows you to locate a specific file by its file name with either a partial name or a complete name. Type the file name into the search box and press Enter to let the software search for the file automatically.

Step 3. After finding the required files, tick them and click Save. When choosing a file recovery destination, you should save those files to a new destination instead of the original one, as data recovery may fail due to data overwriting. 

MiniTool Power Data Recovery Free provides only 1GB of free file recovery capacity. If you choose files more than 1GB, you should update the software to recover all the files. MiniTool has developed several editions of this data recovery software. You can head to the License Comparison page to have a close look at them.

If you run Davinci Resolve on Mac, don’t worry; you can still run professional data recovery software to recover Davinci Resolve projects. Stellar Data Recovery for Mac is specifically designed for Mac data recovery. You can get this software and perform a deep scan on your disk. Pay attention that you need to obtain a premium edition to complete the data recovery process.

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Restore the Recovered Project File into Davinci Resolve

The recovered file sometimes has a number extension, which indicates the creation date of the file. You can remove those numbers after the .db file extension. Then, you need to copy and paste the file to the proper file path:

• For Windows: C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Blackmagic Design\DaVinci Resolve\Support\Resolve Disk Database\Resolve Projects\Users\guest\Projects
• For macOS: /Users/username/Library/Application Support/Blackmagic Design/DaVinci Resolve/Support/Resolve Disk Database/Resolve Project/Users/guest/Projects

Afterward, launch Davinci Resolve to access the newly created project.

How to Recover Unsaved Davinci Resolve Projects

If you are working on a project but suddenly experience the Davinci Resolve crashing, there is no time to save the current file. Is there any way to recover unsaved Davinci Resolve projects on your device? Fortunately, if you have enabled the Live save and backup features, you get the chance to recover those lost Davinci Resolve projects.

You can relaunch Davinci Resolve to enter its main interface, and then find your previous backups. Those backups are usually saved on an external hard drive or another disk. You can try to open one of them and have a check.

If it doesn’t work, you may try to connect with the support team of Blackmagic Design to see if they can give you some more suggestions.

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The End

This post introduces the save file location of Davinci Resolve and ways to manage the Davinci Resolve autosave feature. Furthermore, it focuses on explaining ways to recover Davinci Resolve projects on Windows and Mac in detail. You can try those methods, especially using MiniTool Power Data Recovery, to get the lost project files back.

Additionally, you need to configure the backup feature in Davinci Resolve or manually back up the crucial files in advance to prevent unexpected data loss. If you encounter any problems in using MiniTool software, please feel free to contact us by email via [email protected]. We are always ready for you.