Convert BLEND1 to BLEND

A damaged, missing, or accidentally overwritten Blender project may require restoring its adjacent .blend1 backup. Renaming a verified backup to .blend lets Blender open it as an editable project without exporting the scene.

What the BLEND1 format is

.blend1 is a backup copy of a Blender project, not a separate 3D scene format. When Blender saves a .blend file and backup creation is enabled, it can retain the previous version as .blend1; older backup generations may use .blend2, .blend3, and so on.

The backup uses Blender's native file structure and can contain objects, meshes, materials, cameras, lights, animation, modifiers, node graphs, render settings, and other scene data present at the time of that save. It normally sits beside the current .blend file and represents an earlier save, not necessarily the latest project state.

What the BLEND format is

.blend is Blender's native, editable project format. It can store a complete Blender scene, including geometry, materials, modifiers, animation, simulations, compositor and shader nodes, scene settings, linked libraries, external asset references, and optionally packed resources.

Keeping the project as .blend preserves Blender-specific data that interchange formats such as OBJ, FBX, and glTF may omit or translate. The extension change from .blend1 to .blend does not export or re-encode that data; it only restores the backup under Blender's normal project extension.

How to restore BLEND1 as BLEND

1. Close Blender and make a copy of the .blend1 file. Keep the original backup unchanged.
2. Confirm that the backup belongs to the required project and that the existing .blend file is not a newer version you need.
3. Show filename extensions in the operating system, then rename the copy from project.blend1 to project.blend. Do not create project.blend.blend by leaving hidden extensions enabled.
4. Open the renamed copy in Blender through File → Open. If the file browser hides it, enable an all-files view before renaming, or open the renamed .blend copy directly.
5. Inspect the recovered scene, then use File → Save As and save it under a new name such as project-recovered.blend.

On macOS or Linux, copying and renaming can be done with cp project.blend1 project-recovered.blend. In Windows PowerShell, use Copy-Item project.blend1 project-recovered.blend; the copied file can then be opened in Blender and saved again.

Compatibility and limitations

The restored file may be one or more saves behind the current project. If Blender was interrupted during a save, the backup may also be incomplete or may not contain the changes expected.

Use the Blender version that created the backup when possible. Newer Blender releases generally open older files, but saving the file in a newer release can update its internal format and make it difficult or impossible to reopen in an older release. Save a separate copy before upgrading it.

External textures, linked libraries, simulation caches, and other referenced files remain dependent on their original paths unless they were packed into the backup. A successful file opening does not guarantee that every external asset or cache is available.

No online converter is appropriate for this operation. A .blend1 file already contains Blender project data, and third-party upload services add privacy and file-size risks without performing a meaningful conversion. Use the desktop Blender application to restore, inspect, and resave the file.