Inkscape Document Editing and Auto-Save Recovery: Is the Tilde Autosave File Removed After Successful Recovery?

Inkscape's document editing workflow relies on an auto-save mechanism that writes periodic copies of the active SVG to a tilde-suffixed file (or .svg.bak on some platforms) in the same directory. When the application terminates unexpectedly, the next launch detects this autosave artifact and offers it as a recovered version containing edits made since the last manual save.

The unresolved behavior concerns the lifecycle of that autosave file after recovery. It is not documented whether Inkscape deletes the tilde or .svg.bak file once the user accepts the recovered document, and the behavior varies between versions. This creates uncertainty around disk-space consumption and the accumulation of stale recovery copies alongside the original document.

Because the recovery dialog presents the autosave as the authoritative restored state, users need to know whether the underlying backup file is treated as transient or persistent. If it persists, does Inkscape overwrite it on subsequent autosave cycles, or do multiple stale copies accumulate? If it is removed, is that removal tied directly to accepting the recovery dialog, and what happens if the user declines the recovered version?