What is recovered when an ArcGIS Pro project file (.aprx) is opened from a backup/recovery file?

Answer

ArcGIS Pro application settings offer the option to create backups of the project file (.aprx) at a specified interval. However, it is important to realize what can and cannot be recovered.

The recovery functionality in ArcGIS Pro creates backups of the .aprx file, which contains items specific to ArcGIS Pro such as layers, maps and layouts.

The backup project does not store changes that must be saved separately, such as spatial data edits, changes to table field properties, and edits to geoprocessing models. Also, any Save operations that are triggered by an ordinary project save, such as saving spatial data edits, are not triggered when a project backup is created.

Therefore, if there are uncommitted data edits it is not expected that these can be recovered, as spatial data is not saved in the ArcGIS Pro project file (.aprx).

The solution is to ensure that you commit data changes to the database (File Geodatabase or whatever is being used) before closing ArcGIS Pro.