AutoCAD Drawing Backup Files (.bak)

Bottom Line: It is 100% safe to delete .bak files created by AutoCAD if your main .dwg drawing opens without errors.

What are AutoCAD .bak Files?

Every time you save a .dwg drawing in AutoCAD, AutoCAD renames the previous save file to .bak as an automatic safety copy in the same directory.

Over months of architectural drafting, hundreds of duplicate .bak files hoard 5 GB to 20 GB+ of disk space.

Can You Delete .bak Files?

✅ Yes, safe to delete.

• No Drawing Damage: Your active .dwg project file remains 100% untouched.
• Recovery: If a .dwg file becomes corrupted, you can rename .bak to .dwg to recover the previous save.

How to Delete AutoCAD .bak Files

Windows Command Prompt

del /f /q /s "C:\Users\%USERNAME%\Documents\*.bak"

PowerShell

Get-ChildItem -Path "C:\Projects" -Filter "*.bak" -Recurse | Remove-Item -Force