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Unity Engine

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Unity Engine

Save your work

Understand how Unity saves your scenes, assets, and project settings.
Read time 2 minutesLast updated 11 days ago
Unity categorizes most saved information into either scene changes or project-wide changes.
  • To save all current scene and project-wide changes, go to File > Save (or Save as).
  • To save Project-wide changes, but not Scene changes, go to File > Save Project.
Note
If you edit in prefab editing mode, saving through File > Save only saves changes to the open prefab. Exit the prefab editing mode to save wider changes.
Unity saves some information automatically while you work in the Editor. See Automatic saves for more details.

Scene changes

Scene changes include modifications to GameObjects in the Scene. For example:
  • If you add, move, or delete a GameObject.
  • If you change a GameObject's parameters in the Inspector window.

Project-wide changes

Project-wide changes in Unity apply to your entire project rather than a specific scene. For example, if you create a temporary scene to test changes, you can save the project and not the scene.
Project-wide changes include:
  • Project Settings

    ?

    : When you save your project, Unity saves changes to the Project Settings in the 
    ProjectSettings
    folder, in these files:
    • Input: 
      InputManager.asset
    • Tags And Layers: 
      TagManager.asset
    • Audio: 
      AudioManager.asset
    • Time: 
      TimeManager.asset
    • Player: 
      ProjectSettings.asset
    • Physics: 
      DynamicsManager.asset
    • Physics 2D: 
      Physics2DSettings.asset
    • Quality: 
      QualitySettings.asset
    • Graphics: 
      GraphicsSettings.asset
    • Network: 
      NetworkManager.asset
    • Editor: 
      EditorUserSettings.asset
  • Build Profiles: Unity saves changes to platform profiles and build profiles in the 
    Library
    folder as assets. For more information, refer to Introduction to build profiles.
  • Changed assets: When you save project-wide settings, Unity saves any unsaved assets.
    Note
    Some asset types have an Apply button in the Inspector. Unity will not save these unless you select Apply.
  • Dirty assets: Unity saves Dirty assets, which are files on your disk that are modified in the software but not saved yet. You can use custom Editors and scripts to mark an Asset as dirty in one of these ways:

Automatic saves

Unity automatically saves the following changes to your disk:
  • New assets: Unity automatically saves new assets when you create them but you need to save later changes.
  • Asset Import Settings: For the changes to take effect with most assets, you need to select Apply in the Inspector window. Unity saves the changes when you select Apply.
  • Baked data: When you have data that is set to Baked in your project, Unity saves this data after the bake finishes. This includes:
    • Baked Lighting data
    • Baked navigation data
    • Baked occlusion culling data
  • Script execution order changes: After you select Apply, Unity saves this data into each script's 
    .meta
    file.