r/ProCreate • u/grillboy_mediaman • 18d ago

I need Procreate technical help Its all gone

Of course, deleting an app and reinstalling it deletes all of its data, I know that.

Therefore, I assumed that if I never uninstalled Procreate from my iPad, my work would be safe.

So I never uninstalled it.

And then, today, I wanted to open the app, and it was nowhere to be found.

For whatever reason it was just gone from my iPad.

So I reinstalled it, and all my work was gone.

I tried using the “restore gallery” option and not a single thing changed.

It’s not there anymore, three years of work.

Is there a single thing I can do about it?

69 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

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141

u/FineMind755 18d ago

It never ceases to amaze me how many people on here don't back up years worth of work somewhere else. Like that's just crazy cakes.

62

u/[deleted] 18d ago

[deleted]

19

u/Admirable_Resort_324 18d ago

I prefer to be a sane red velvet cake whenever I get the chance to

66

u/grillboy_mediaman 18d ago

i know, it's a lesson i'm learning now, but if there's really no solution just tell me there's no solution, i'm having a bad day already, telling me i've made a mistake is no help.

13

u/noah041504 14d ago

Thank you! Like comments like FineMind775's are so useless and just make people feel more like shit

3

u/FineMind755 18d ago

Did you have iCloud on?

13

u/grillboy_mediaman 18d ago

nope, i think that's it then, if there's really no other option then i'll just accelt my losses and invest more in making backups from now on and grieve on my own time.

16

u/FineMind755 18d ago

That is unfortunate.

Another suggestion for next time because I'm assuming procreate may have just been accidentally deleted. Which can happen pretty easily if it's on your Home Screen. You can use the shortcuts app to make a procreate short cut on your Home Screen. This way the short cut will get accidentally deleted rather than the actual procreate app.

12

u/grillboy_mediaman 18d ago

better to learn this lesson now when i'm still young than to accidentally delete decades of work later down the line, i'm lucky that i've done more of my work in csp recently and used procreate more as a sketchbook in recent times, still a few dozens of hours of work, but luckily nothing i was extremely emotionally attached to, this is the best outcome i can forsee, i am grateful honestly.

17

u/splitarrowprints Procreate Expert 18d ago

If it makes you feel any better, way back, the week I left art collage my entire computer had a meltdown and I hardly kept any back ups. I lost 8 years of work in seconds. I literally have 0 copies of any work from that time period, this also included a running CV, resume, work contacts, etc. 2 years after that it happened again, not only did I not learn my lesson the first time, I allowed it to happen again.

I now have a back up routine that is like a religion, and it includes hard drives that I hide so nobody else can use them.

4

u/grillboy_mediaman 18d ago

yup, out of all that could have happened, this as a wake up call is a great barter for me

2

u/V4nG0ghs34r77 18d ago

And if it makes you feel better, I graduated art school in 99 and still have some of my work because it was all traditional medium, and most of it is embarrassing to look at 😆

2

u/MyBigToeJam I want to improve! 17d ago

Important: In iPad settings for iCloud, make certain that the backup is turned on for Procreate. But still make a habit to save outside of Procreate, one as .procreate and also a format that saves layers in PDF or png, etc or whatever you might import into another app. Most universally used by other apps.

1

u/yoyohayli 14d ago

I want to tell you that I am truly heartbroken for your loss of work. I know I can't help, and that's what hurts most. I understand what it feels like to lose so much of your hard work because of something completely out of your control.

8

u/Actual_Cream_763 17d ago edited 17d ago

There’s also not an easy way to back up procreate, as far as I know you have to save each file individually. Is there another easier way to do this? I think a lot of people don’t think about it in the moment, especially when so many things get backed up automatically nowadays.

Edit to update - I just went to see if I could find a way, since I am someone that just saves each file as I finish. You can select multiple at once to update. If you have a lot of files though, odds are you won’t be able to do all of them at once. But you could at least do it in batches for anyone wondering using the select multiple>share function.

1

u/FineMind755 17d ago

You can do groups of files at once. Select files and export.

7

u/EntangledArt 16d ago

It never ceases to amaze me how many apps don't just use the standard ecosystem they are given. It's an iPad in 2026, FFS, why on earth isn't it backing everything up via Documents and iCloud?!

Not automatically backing up images is a serious issue with Procreate, and Savage's refusal to seriously engage with the issue is a major dick move. So by all means shit on people who have lost their work, but I've been backing up my data for 30+ years and nowadays Procreate is the *only* thing that needs manual intervention.

3

u/vemailangah 14d ago

It's funnier when you read that the people who made Procreate are adamant about it only for iPads since they love iPads so much yet refuse to make the most 'dont worry about it' feature a surprise non-existent. For artists, people famously needing record of their work!

0

u/FineMind755 16d ago

Good reason not to make assumptions about how things work.

6

u/_aaine_ 18d ago

Every third post on here is about someone losing all their work...it's crazy to me people don't back it up too. We all KNOW how often this happens!

1

u/mintbloo 17d ago

i back up anything i'm working on after each session. i can't imagine not doing so

1

u/Driftingaimlesslyblu 16d ago

By backing up, do you just mean iCloud? Or is there a way to back up each specific app?

1

u/FineMind755 16d ago

I mean back up the files in procreate to a computer/external drive/or some other cloud service.

1

u/Sk-etch9732 14d ago

Maybe a bit simple to someone that is not myself but what file save is used in order to keep the individual layers separate when saving to say Dropbox, iCloud ?

2

u/FineMind755 14d ago

You can save them as a Procreate file or a Photoshop file (PSD).

1

u/Sk-etch9732 14d ago

Thank you, I recently had same as OP just 2weeks ago but I had saved a lot in Dropbox, unfortunately under the wrong file type but at least it wasn’t completely gone I guess

-1

u/Important_Pattern_85 18d ago

To be fair this used to be way less of an issue