First Steps
Before initializing a project, it’s recommended to turn off file compression. FreeCAD documents are binary files by default, which means small model edits can produce large file changes. Turning off file compression results in larger files on disk, but smaller overall disk usage when saving iterations over time, as only the differences between files need to be stored each time.
To disable document compression:
- In FreeCAD, open Edit > Preferences > General > Document.
- Set Document save compression level to
0. - Click “OK”.
Initializing Your Project
Section titled “Initializing Your Project”To initialize your project, jump to the section relevant to you:
- Blank Project — starting from scratch with no existing models
- Existing Project — adding history tracking to an existing project
- Existing Git Project — for projects already using git
Blank Project
Section titled “Blank Project”Follow these steps if you haven’t started modeling your parts yet.
1. Create a FreeCAD document
Section titled “1. Create a FreeCAD document”In FreeCAD, create a blank document and save it in the folder you want to use as the base of your project. The folder and all of its sub-folders will be set up to be tracked using this procedure.
Example location: C:\Users\JohnDoe\Documents\FreeCAD\MyProject\
2. Initialize Project Command
Section titled “2. Initialize Project Command”Click 
Initialize Project in the History Workbench, select the folder that contains your document, and press “Initialize”.
That’s it — you are now ready to start tracking your model history.
Existing Project
Section titled “Existing Project”Existing projects need to have snapshots generated for all FreeCAD files, to be able to start using the comparison functionality.
1. Open a FreeCAD document
Section titled “1. Open a FreeCAD document”Start FreeCAD and open any document from the folder you want to use as the root of your Project.
2. Initialize Project command
Section titled “2. Initialize Project command”Click Initialize Project in the History Workbench, select the folder that contains your project files, and click “Initialize”.
3. Open All Project Documents
Section titled “3. Open All Project Documents”Click 
Open All Documents in Project to open all FreeCAD documents in the project folder.
4. Recompute All Documents
Section titled “4. Recompute All Documents”Click 
Recompute All to make sure document state is current. Ensure there aren’t recomputation errors. If there are, it is advisable to fix them, otherwise the base snapshot(s) will have incomplete data stored.
5. Create the First Iteration
Section titled “5. Create the First Iteration”Select Current Files Area in the iteration list, then click Mark All Reviewed. This prepares both the documents and their snapshots.
Finally, use the 
Save Iteration command to write an initial message like “My first iteration”, and press Save.
Now you are ready to work on your project.
Existing Git Project
Section titled “Existing Git Project”If you already use git in your project and want to start using the workbench, you need to create a baseline commit that contains all the snapshots for your FreeCAD documents. Simply follow the steps from “Existing Project” above, starting at step 3.