Save & Load

Preferences Save/Load section.

Blend Files

Save

Save Prompt

Asks for confirmation before closing or opening a new blend-file if the current file has unsaved changes.

Save Preview Images

Previews of images and materials in the File Browser are created on demand. To save these previews into your blend-file, enable this option (at the cost of increasing the size of your blend-file).

Default To

Relative Paths

Default value for Relative Paths when loading external files such as images, sounds, and linked libraries. It will be ignored if a path is already set.

Compress File

Default value for Compress file when saving blend-files.

Load UI

Default value for Load UI when loading blend-files.

Text Files

Tabs as Spaces

Entering Tab in the Text Editor adds the appropriate number of spaces instead of using characters.

Save Versions

Number of versions created (for backup) when saving newer versions of a file.

This option keeps saved versions of your file in the same directory, using extensions: .blend1, .blend2, etc., with the number increasing to the number of versions you specify.

Older files will be named with a higher number. E.g. with the default setting of 2, you will have three versions of your file:

*.blend

last saved.

*.blend1

second last saved.

*.blend2

third last saved.

Recent Files

Number of files displayed in File ‣ Open Recent.

Auto Save

Enables Auto Save. Tells Blender to automatically save a backup copy of your work-in-progress files to the Temporary Directory.

Timer

This specifies the number of minutes to wait between each Auto Save. The default value of the Blender installation is 2 minutes. The minimum is 1, and the Maximum is 60 (save every hour).

Auto Run Python Scripts

Python scripts (including driver expressions) are not executed by default for security reasons. You may be working on projects where you only load files from trusted sources, making it more convenient to allow scripts to be executed automatically.

Excluded Paths

Blend-files in these folders will not automatically run Python scripts. This can be used to define where blend-files from untrusted sources are kept.

See also

Python Security.

File Browser

Filter File Extensions

By activating this, the file region in the File Browser will only show appropriate files (i.e. blend-files when loading a complete Blender setting). The selection of file types may be changed in the file region.

Hide

Dot File & Data-blocks

Hide files which start with . on File Browsers and ID selector.

Hint

Data-blocks beginning with a . can be selected by typing in the . characters. When explicitly written, the setting to hide these data-blocks is ignored.

Recent Locations

Hide the Recent panel of the File Browser which displays recently accessed folders.

System Bookmarks

Hide System Bookmarks in the File Browser.