Instructions to Recover InDesign Files on Mac

Adobe InDesign is undoubtedly one of the most popular layout designing and desktop publishing applications right now. It helps you create and design posters, flyers, presentations, magazine covers, brochures, and many other digital publications. The software provides the most delicate control that every graphic designer dreams of. However, all your hard work will go down the drain if you accidentally lose or delete the design file you are working on. Thankfully, there are multiple ways to recover your InDesign files on Mac. In this article, we will show you exactly how to do that. Without hesitation, let’s get into it.

What is InDesign?

InDesign is a software application produced by Adobe Systems that allows designers to create and format digital and print documents like posters, brochures, magazines, and books. It’s widely used in the publishing industry for layout design and desktop publishing. Nevertheless to say that, Adobe InDesign supports interactive PDFs, and can also publish content suitable for tablet devices.

Methods to Recover an InDesign File

There are many ways you can follow to restore a lost file that you created with Adobe InDesign. While the process is pretty straightforward, you may still need help. With that being said, have a look at the possible methods to recover an InDesign file:

Method 1. Recover Unsaved InDesign Files on Mac Using the Local Backup Folder

Every Adobe InDesign application has the Automatic Recovery feature enabled by default. Thus, whenever you make a new change in any InDesign file, the app automatically backs up the change as a temporary file, and stores it in a local backup folder on your Mac.

That way, if you ever accidentally leave the app without saving an InDesign file, you can restore it from that folder. Here’s how you can recover Indesign files on Mac using the local backup folder:

Step 1. Close Adobe InDesign and wait a few seconds.

Step 2. Launch the InDesign app on your computer once again.

Step 3. Now, the app will try to load all the automatically saved files.

If you find an unsaved file, it will be in “[filename]Recovered” format. From here, you can take two different paths:

Save the recovered file as-is without making any further changes. To do this, follow these instructions.

1. Open the file and navigate to File → Save As.
2. Change the name of the file and click on the “Yes” option. The file will be saved with your chosen file name.

Revert the file to a previous version. You can use this option when you make changes in an already saved file, but you want to cancel the changes. Before you cancel the new changes, the InDesign app closes and the file was left unsaved. Here’s how you can do it:

1. Open the file and go to File → Revert.
2. Click on the last saved version of the file and the file will revert to a previous version.

You may also be given an option to repair the file as shown below:

Method 2. Use Professional Data Recovery Software for InDesign Files

Most Adobe software has an automatic recovery feature. We used this method to recover files from Adobe XD, Illustrator, etc. So, the automatic recovery feature of Adobe InDesign can help you restore unsaved files.

But if the file has already been deleted from your computer, this auto-recovery feature can no longer help you. In that case, you need to use a professional data restoration application to recover the InDesign files on a Mac.

To do it, you need to download and install a professional data recovery application on your Mac first. Now, there are hundreds of data recovery apps available in the market, and you are free to make a choice.

However, if you want to recover the deleted files without trouble, you need to ensure the application of your choice fulfills two very important conditions:

1. It has myriad positive reviews from both the end users and the data recovery experts.
2. The application comes from a renowned data recovery company.

As long as the app fulfills these two requirements, download it. Follow these instructions to recover the deleted InDesign files on Mac:

1. Open the data recovery app on your Mac and select the drive or folder that held the InDesign files before their deletion.
2. Click on the “Search for lost data” or “Scan” option to start the scanning process.
3. Once the scan is complete, the application will show you a list of recoverable files. Find the files you want to recover and select them all.
4. Click on the “Recover” option.
5. Select a folder where you would like to store the recovered files and click on the “OK” button.

Now, the selected files will be downloaded to your chosen folder. Once the downloading process is complete, you can access these files once again.

FAQs About Recovering Adobe InDesign Files