What files are needed to archive a project?

Projects
1

I’ve completed a project, built and deployed the boards and now I want to archive and document the project.
In the Kicad Project directory there are a number of files that are explained in the help but the help info doesn’t give a sense of the importance of these files to a project.

For instance, I have:
Projectname-rescue.dcm
Projectname.kicad_pcb-bak
Projectname-cache.lib
Projectname-rescue.lib

fp-info-cache
sym-lib-table

I know I could simply zip the whole project directory but I like to clean up any temp or working files so when/if I come back to the project in the future I don’t have a lot of un-needed files to sort through.

Thanks

2

Clicking the “Archive Project” button should get all files you need. If it doesn’t, that’s a bug.

3

From your list only the -bak file can be ignored.

4

“Archive project” button in KiCad will not archive 3D models though.

5

I am at least missing the project.sch and project.pro files in your list.

Some time ago I was confused by the “project Archive” thing.
It did include a text file with notes, but not other files which which I wanted to backup, and for backup’s I’d rather trust my own brains ability, even though that also misses some stitches sometimes.

To determine what you want to backup. Start by copying the whole project to some experimental sandbox. Then delete all files of which you are sure you do not need to backup, such as gerbers, netlists, files with drc errors, backup files. Then from the files that are left, you will know of most if you want to keep them. When there is doubt, read documentation, or delete it and try if you can still open the project without KiCad complaining (You might miss things this way).

What you want to backup is also personal, and may change. For example, I usually do not backup gerbers, because they can be easily generated from the PCB file. However, when I’ve send out gerbers to have PCB’s made, I also archive those gerbers.

HDD space is cheap. 3/4 of the files are not worth checking if they can be safely deleted, and I simply keep them cause I dont care about a few (hundred) kB.

6

Do you mean collect models from around the file system and gather them in your project? If they are in the project directory, I think we get them.

7

Yup. If using the official library, then the models will be in some other location than project folder.

I’ve just checked and you do (it does).

8

Thank you. I created an “archive”. It did not include the “fp-info-cache” nor the bak files.

I think I will zip the whole directory and be safe.

John

9

My list only included the “questionable files” so .pro, sch, pcb etc were all known to be required.

HDD space is cheap. 3/4 of the files are not worth checking if they can be safely deleted, and I simply keep them cause I dont care about a few (hundred) kB.

But eventually the clutter will take over. I prefer to cull files prior to saving them to an “archive” location. Then I am confident I know what I’m keeping. But this is a personal decision.

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10

Thus (one of) the value(s) of your archive_project script to copy (and then remap) 3D files to the project folder. :wink:

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11

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