I know of no other program where you need to login every 30 days, open and close each and every one of your own files, just to keep them as your own. And if you miss, your files are forever deleted with no way of backing them up or ever restoring them.
Yes, I made an assumption that my projects were my own property and not Glowforge’s. And I made the assumption I didn’t have to run through the ridiculous gymnastics of opening and closing 200+ files every 30 days in order to keep them. And I made the assumption I could reliably back up my projects locally.
I understand your frustration over things you assumed it should do. To me, manually focusing on material and setting print settings for every step is no different to when I put paper or an envelope in the top-feed of my inject printer and confirm or change the settings on the little screen. They both take just a few seconds - although for files with many steps for the 'forge it can take a few more.
The printer itself stores nothing, even though I don’t need the cloud to print it’s an option if I wanted to - I could print from anywhere in the world, if it was on and paper loaded.
The machine isn’t designed for commercial use, so I’m not concerned over the fact I need to validate placement for things where it’s critical (I engrave onto silicone rings and 1/4" wooden beads, for example.) I have a test target that I run first over the same mark on the jig to verify placement before running a print…
A couple people here mentioned I should contact support and see if they can’t get me access to those files. I finally received a reply from Glowforge support:
Hi Chipp,
This is Emie from Glowforge customer care. Thanks for writing in with this request. I can definitely help!
I understand your concern about losing access to your legacy files and settings. Unfortunately, once a Premium subscription is canceled, we no longer have access to the old designs and settings associated with that account.
