Saving Revit file back to a previous version

[Anonymous]

Hello All,

Is it possible to save a Revit file created in 2017 version to save back or open in Revit 2015 or 2016?

Some of my customer still uses lower versions and they are not able to use the files created in 2017 version.

Please let me know if there is any possibility to achieve this.

Thanks in advance

[ennujozlagam · Accepted solution]

No you cannot downgrade to lower version. Lower version to higher version can.

[DarrenP]

see other thread: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-architecture-forum/saving-revit-file-back-to-a-previous-version...

[baniabdelwaheb1]

Hi Sharannya,
Revit is not like Autocad, you can't save to earliar releases.
But you can export to IFC and than Import into your previous release.
And I think that you may loose some of intitial information.
I hope this will help
Abdelwaheb,

[Sahay_R]

Can't do. I feel your pain. This is an idea that has already been placed on AutoDesk's Wish List. Let's see if it happens.....

[m.voss.alvine]

its on everyone's wishlist, but you have to look on the programming side of things.  what will happen to all of the new features that are not available in the older versions? (I don't want to find out)  Revit 2014 wouldn't know what to do with the new categories, additional calcs, etc.

[ToanDN]

The short answer is "No".

The long answer is "No you cannot.  But you can open a non-editable (or nearly non-editable) version of the file in an earlier Revit version.  Steps:

- Export the model to IFC from Revit 2017, for example: "Model.IFC"

- Open 2016, link the file "Model.IFC" in

- Go to the folder where you saved the IFC, you will see a file with the same name as the IFC, but with the RVT extension: "Model.IFC.RVT".  Copy it to a new folder, or to a new name, such as "Model2016.RVT"

- Now you can open that "Model2016.RVT" directly in Revit 2016.  Walls are walls and Door are doors.  But I don't think they can be edited unless there is some good news that I have yet been in the know.

[chrisplyler]

You may consider, in the future, establishing the possibility of such conflicts and deciding on resolutions in advance when dealing with new clients.

[ToanDN]

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@ToanDN wrote:

The short answer is "No".

The long answer is "No you cannot.  But you can open a non-editable (or nearly non-editable) version of the file in an earlier Revit version.  Steps:

- Export the model to IFC from Revit 2017, for example: "Model.IFC"

- Open 2016, link the file "Model.IFC" in

- Go to the folder where you saved the IFC, you will see a file with the same name as the IFC, but with the RVT extension: "Model.IFC.RVT".  Copy it to a new folder, or to a new name, such as "Model2016.RVT"

- Now you can open that "Model2016.RVT" directly in Revit 2016.  Walls are walls and Door are doors.  But I don't think they can be edited unless there is some good news that I have yet been in the know.

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The above is not a good solution.  Sorry about that.  You can open the IFC directly in Revit, no need for all the linking nonsense I had said.

[dmarchant]

Nope its why you should should a daily back up of your central & tell your users to do the same on there p.c.'s with their locals.