Simplify a project - extract components into own file/workspace

[atomicsupersonic]

Hi

Hope someone can help.

I have a design file - for simplicities sake let's call it a chest of drawers.

The design file has got cluttered and messy and very heavy in data.

I really want to take the separate bodies/components (Sides of drawer/ bottom of drawer/front - back etc) into their own design environment with their construction history and use that as my way to adjust those specific parts. Then reference them back into an assembly file.

Chat GPT and Claude have me trying to save out components using right click, but these new files have no timeline or construction history.

Is there a way

(Yes I know I am working backwards)

Many thanks for your future help, be sure I exhausted YouTube etc before posting here. But if you do know of an instructional video, I learn way better that way.

Thanks

[TheCADWhisperer]

@atomicsupersonic 

Depends on how you created the Components.

Sketches within the Components?

No projected references between Components?

Attach your file here and I'm sure one of the experts here will remodel it for you.

[atomicsupersonic]

Thank you @TheCADWhisperer but I cannot really share the file at this stage.

[TheCADWhisperer]

@atomicsupersonic 

Make a simple dummy file to illustrate the question.

[TrippyLighting]

You can save components to the data panel by right-clicking on the component in the browser and selecting "save copy as".

That only saves it to that panel, but does not link it back to the originating file. 

Even if that functionality existed, my guess, based on having looked through thousands of user files here on the forum, is that the vast majority of Fusion users do not have the expertise and discipline to create components that would allow externalization without problems.

Most users unknowingly create references/links between components in a top-down design. When a component is saved to the data panel, those references break, often leading to yellow and red  icons in the externalized designs. Those have to be fixed.

Once the externalized component is repaired, the component has to be deleted from the original design.

That will likely create more yellow icons that have to be fixed, if that is even possible.

If you have tried "save copy as," there is a timeline if the original design has one.

Externalization is on the roadmap, but I have no info on where it is in terms of development progress.