Saving replaced the project file with nothing kept of what it was: one
bad save -- a fault in QElectroTech, a full disk, a wrong edit saved by
mistake -- and the last good version was gone. AutoCAD keeps a .bak on
every save, KiCad several backups.
Before a project is saved over, the file as it was is now copied to a
folder beside it, "<name>-backups", named by the time that version was
saved ("industrial 2026-10-16 08-30-12.qetz"); only the newest are kept,
5 by default (Settings > General > Projects, 0 for none). A copy is
never a move, so a save that fails leaves the file in place; a copy that
fails only warns, the save goes on. The same bytes as the newest version
kept are not kept twice.
The prompt on opening ("Create a backup copy?"), which writes one dated
copy beside the project and never removes any, is left as it is.
New tst_previousversions (newest kept, same bytes once, same second,
nothing for a new file or a count of 0, a failed copy said); it fails
with the oldest never removed. Checked with the program: two scripted
saves of a .qetz leave the original and the first save in
industrial-backups, the project holds the second. ctest 107/107.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
ispyisail
e8201abb8a