How to Transfer Your Procreate Canvases
Procreate Gallery
Transferring your Procreate canvas to an external storage solution is essential for safeguarding your artwork and maintaining organization. Storing your files externally not only protects them from potential data loss due to app crashes or device issues, but also frees up valuable space on your device for future projects. This also expands your iPad’s storage space which can influence the overall speed and efficiency of your iPad.
Another Benefit
Transferring your canvases also allows you the freedom to access your artwork from multiple devices. This makes it so much easier to collaborate or showcase your artwork. Additionally, organizing your files externally is a great way to backup your canvases.
And nobody ever talks about a renaming workflow until you’re several hundred canvases deep and you can’t seem to find anything. It’s so much easier to name your canvases from the beginning. Think of something that makes sense to you, and you will be able to locate and manage your designs as your portfolio grows.
Naming Canvases
At first, I would name the canvases something that pertained to the artwork. Later on, I discovered that this method was not very helpful when it came to locating the canvases, especially since Procreate (at least at the time of this article) doesn’t have a built in sorting system. One idea was naming the canvases by:
Year- Type of Drawing - Subject Matter - Actual Name of the Artwork .
Now this worked for me.
Spilt View
Next, I needed to find the easiest way for me to transfer over the canvases. Here’s what I came up with and this is the process I use.
1. While in Procreate, tap on the three dots located at the top center
2. Choose Split View - this will slide Procreate to the side - exposing your iPad’s homepage.
(At this point, you’re supposed to select the app you want to share the split screen with).
3. Locate your File app, it’s the blue folder icon and tap it
(Files is where you can access iCloud or an external device like a hard drive or flash drive - Look for BROWSE > LOCATIONS)
4. If you need to make a folder - name it something - and drag over the Canvases from Procreate Gallery
5. Your canvases will still remain in the Gallery because this process doesn’t move your canvases, it only copies it over to the new location.
Make sure that the copies are a Procreate format. If they’re not follow these steps:
iPad Settings
Scroll to the bottom - Tap Apps
Tap - Procreate
Scroll to the Bottom - Under the Drag and Drop Settings - Choose Procreate
Now you can decide whether you’d like to have more iPad storage or simply have a backup of your canvases. Either way it’s a win -win!
Now there is a video to this madness… so check it out!
