How-to guide · how to favorite a block in the blocks palette

Favorite a block in the AutoCAD Blocks palette

DWGDXFFree1,112 words

By Sumana Kumar · Published 7 Sept 2022 · Updated 13 Apr 2025

The Favorites tab in the AutoCAD Blocks palette is your hand-picked shelf — the blocks you place so often they should never be more than one click away. Where Recent is a short rolling memory, Favorites is permanent and curated by you. Once you favourite the doors, furniture and symbols you use on every job, you stop digging through folders and start working from a tray you trust.

This guide shows how to add a block to Favorites from any source, how the Favorites tab is backed by a real folder on disk, how to organise and rename favourites, and how to remove the ones you no longer need so the tab stays a tight set rather than a junk drawer.

Favorites work the same in current AutoCAD releases including 2024 and 2025. They are stored in a Favorites folder under your AutoCAD profile, which means you can back them up or copy them to another machine, a detail we cover near the end.

Adding a block to Favorites from the palette

Open the Blocks palette with BLOCKSPALETTE. On the Current Drawing, Recent or Libraries tab, find the block you want to keep, right-click its thumbnail and choose Add to Favorites (sometimes Copy to Favorites). The block now appears on the Favorites tab and stays there across sessions.

This is the move to make the moment you notice you keep re-inserting the same component. Favouriting a 1000 mm wide single door or a 4-person table after the second or third manual insert pays for itself immediately on a door- or furniture-heavy plan.

What the Favorites tab actually is

The Favorites tab is backed by a folder on disk inside your AutoCAD support file profile — favouriting a block writes a small reference into that folder. That is why your favourites survive restarts and why you can manage them outside AutoCAD if you ever need to.

Because it is a real folder, you can also drop DWG files into it directly from File Explorer to make them favourites, and they will appear on the tab next time you open the palette. This gives you two ways in: right-click inside AutoCAD, or copy files into the Favorites folder.

Organising your favourites

As the tab grows, switch the palette view to a details list so names are easy to scan, and keep your favourites named clearly — vague names like Block1 defeat the purpose. If your version supports it, group related favourites so doors sit together and furniture sits together rather than mixing into one grid.

A disciplined Favorites tab is short. Aim to keep only the components you genuinely place on most jobs; everything else can stay in Libraries and be pulled in when a specific project needs it. A tight, well-named tab is faster to read than a sprawling one.

Inserting from Favorites

Placing a favourite is the same as any palette insert: click the thumbnail, set the Scale, Rotation and Repeat Placement options at the bottom of the palette, and click in the drawing. For a row of identical doors, tick Repeat Placement and keep clicking to drop instance after instance.

Because favourites are your staples, it is worth getting their placement options right once. If you always insert a particular table at a set rotation, note that and set Rotation before placing so the block arrives oriented correctly every time.

Removing a block from Favorites

To prune the tab, right-click a favourite thumbnail and choose Remove from Favorites. This removes the reference from the Favorites folder; it does not delete the underlying DWG or block definition, so nothing is lost — you simply take it off your shelf.

Review the tab occasionally. Project work changes, and a block that was a staple last year may no longer earn its place. Removing dead favourites keeps the tab honest and fast, which is the whole point of having one.

Backing up and moving your favourites

Because Favorites are stored in a folder under your AutoCAD profile, you can copy that folder to back them up or to replicate your library on another computer. Find the Favorites support path in OPTIONS > Files if you need the exact location, then copy the folder across. It is worth adding this folder to whatever you use to sync or back up your machine, because rebuilding a hand-curated tab from scratch after a reinstall is exactly the kind of dull repetition the tab was meant to spare you.

For a team, you can point everyone at a shared favourites or library location so the standard blocks are consistent across the office. That turns a personal convenience into an enforced set of approved doors, furniture and details everyone inserts from, and it means a corrected block reaches the whole team the next time they open AutoCAD rather than circulating by email.

Favourites, Recent and Libraries together

The three tabs are strongest used together rather than in isolation. Browse a new component once from Libraries, work from Recent while you are actively placing it, and promote it to Favorites the moment you know it has earned a permanent place. That flow means you are rarely more than one click from any block you actually use, whether you reached for it five minutes or five months ago.

Think of Favorites as your standards shelf, Recent as your working bench, and Libraries as the storeroom. Keeping each in its role — and resisting the urge to let Favorites swell into a second storeroom — is what keeps block insertion fast on a door- and furniture-heavy plan.

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Questions

Frequently asked

How do I add a block to Favorites in the AutoCAD Blocks palette?+

Open the Blocks palette (BLOCKSPALETTE), find the block on the Current Drawing, Recent or Libraries tab, right-click its thumbnail and choose Add to Favorites. It then appears permanently on the Favorites tab across sessions.

Where are AutoCAD Blocks palette favorites stored?+

Favorites are kept in a folder under your AutoCAD profile's support files. You can find the exact path in OPTIONS > Files, and you can copy that folder to back up your favourites or move them to another machine.

How is the Favorites tab different from the Recent tab?+

Recent is a short rolling list of blocks you have just inserted, and entries fall off as you place new ones. Favorites is a permanent, curated tab you control by hand, so the blocks you pick stay there until you remove them.

Does removing a favorite delete the block?+

No. Remove from Favorites only takes the block off your Favorites tab by deleting the reference in the Favorites folder. The underlying DWG file and the block definition inside any drawing are untouched.

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