Disaster Recovery & Crash Restores

Do Not Panic: Your Previous Saves are Safe

If your DAW just crashed mid-save, threw a terrifying "Corrupt Project" error, or a third-party plugin froze your computer, take a deep breath. Because Sabes Pro stores independent, encrypted backup blocks in its local database, your historical saves are completely isolated from your DAW file corruption.

Immediate Steps: What to Do After a Crash

1. Do Not Save or Force Close Repeatedly: If your DAW is glitching, do not hit Ctrl+S again, as that could write junk data to your disk.
2. Open the Sabes Pro Desktop App: Launch Sabes Pro from your Windows Start Menu or system tray.
3. Open Your Project Timeline: Click on your project card on the Projects Hub screen.

Two Ways to Restore Your Music

Method 1: Restore in Place (Replaces the Broken File)

This is the fastest way to get back to making music:

1. On your Take Timeline, click the last healthy Take node created right before the crash occurred.
2. In the right-hand panel, click the blue button: Restore Take.
3. Sabes Pro will automatically create an instant safety snapshot of your current folder (just in case), and then replace your broken DAW session file with the clean historical version.
4. Open your DAW and resume producing.

Method 2: Export Standalone (Safe Side-by-Side Copy)

If you want to keep your broken file for forensics and extract your clean version into a fresh folder:

1. Select the healthy Take on your timeline.
2. Click Export Standalone in the right action panel.
3. Choose a destination folder (for example, D:\Music\Song_Recovered).
4. Sabes Pro will export a complete, playable project folder with all required audio stems.

Offline Browser Recovery (No Software Needed)

What if you are on a client's computer, in a hotel room, or do not have Sabes Pro installed? Every exported mastering bundle includes a self-contained offline recovery file (restore.html):

1. Double-click restore.html inside your exported ZIP folder. It opens in Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, or Firefox.
2. The tool runs 100% offline using your browser built-in WebCrypto engine without sending any data over the internet.
3. Select your Take, enter your passphrase if encrypted, and click Extract Playable DAW Files. Your browser downloads a clean ZIP containing all session files ready for your DAW.

Restoring to a New PC from Cloud Backup (BYOS)

If your studio hard drive died or you bought a new computer:

1. Install Sabes Pro on your new PC.
2. Click Settings → Cloud Storage (BYOS) and enter your cloud bucket credentials (S3, B2, Wasabi, or R2).
3. Click Pull Remote Workspaces. Sabes Pro downloads your encrypted index and restores your full project history onto your new machine.

Next Steps

Protect your session from future issues by learning how to scan for missing audio files in our Project Health Checks Guide.