Recover data after a crash

If Maya crashes, it saves scene files in a temporary directory:

Environment variables and saved scene files

Maya saves scene files using the value of the TEMPDIR environment variable. This variable specifies the directory location Maya uses for various temporary files, such as temporary render cache files during a render and/or crash files if Maya crashes. See Environment Variables for more information about using them to modify the standard path locations.
  • If you're using Windows: set both TEMP and TMPDIR.
  • If you're using Mac OS X: set TMPDIR. The value can be checked by running the following in a Terminal window: echo $TMPDIR
  • If you're running Linux: set TMPDIR. The value can be checked by running the following in a Terminal window: echo $TMPDIR

If you use the TEMP (Windows/Mac OS X) or TEMPDIR (Linux) variables, Maya saves the recovery file to the path stated in the variable instead.