Site Designer Guide
autosave backup recovery rsd project-file

Recovering an autosaved project

Site Designer automatically saves a backup of your project every few minutes. If your project file is lost, corrupted, or accidentally overwritten, you can recover your work from these autosaves.

Where autosaves are stored

Windows:

C:\Users\<YourName>\AppData\Roaming\CoffeeCup Software\Site Designer\Autosaves\

macOS:

~/Library/Application Support/CoffeeCup Software/Site Designer/Autosaves/

Autosave file naming

Autosave files are named using your project name plus a timestamp:

MyProjectName_2026-05-14_14-32-07.rsd

The most recent autosave has the latest timestamp. Each version is a complete .rsd project file — not a diff or patch.

How often Site Designer autosaves

By default, Site Designer autosaves every 5 minutes while you are actively working. You can increase this frequency for critical projects:

  1. Go to Settings → Preferences.
  2. Find Autosave interval and set it to 1 or 2 minutes.
  3. Click Save.

Site Designer keeps the last 10 autosave versions per project. Older versions are automatically deleted to conserve disk space.

Restoring from an autosave

  1. Navigate to the Autosaves folder for your OS (paths above).
  2. Find the autosave file you want to restore. Sort by date modified to find the most recent.
  3. Copy the .rsd file to your projects folder (e.g., Documents/Site Designer Projects/).
  4. Open Site Designer and use File → Open to open the copied file.
  5. Verify that the recovered content is intact, then save as your main project file using File → Save As.

Manual save: your best protection

Autosaves are a safety net, not a substitute for saving regularly. Press ⌘S (macOS) or Ctrl+S (Windows) before making any major change — switching frameworks, deleting a page, restructuring a layout. Manual saves create the .rsd file in your projects folder, which you control.

Best practices for project backups

  • Keep the .rsd file in a cloud-synced folder (Dropbox, iCloud, Google Drive, OneDrive). Cloud sync provides an additional version history and protects against hardware failure.
  • Use Git for important client projects. Commit the .rsd file to a Git repository before major changes. You get a full version history with meaningful commit messages.
  • Export before major restructuring. Export a full HTML copy of your site before changing frameworks, reorganizing pages, or other high-risk operations. The exported HTML is a readable snapshot even without Site Designer.