Freezing Features

You drag the freeze bar to freeze features.

For frozen features with out-of-date external references, SOLIDWORKS prompts you to lock the external references. You can lock the external references or manage the external references as locked for the current session.

SOLIDWORKS does not update locked external references during a rebuild. As a result, the model is not marked out-of-date.

To turn on the freeze bar, click Tools > Options > System Options > General and select Enable Freeze bar.

To freeze features:

  1. Move the pointer over the freeze bar.
    The pointer changes to .

  2. Drag the freeze bar down below the last feature that you want to freeze.
    When the freeze bar is at the top of the tree, you can also right-click a feature and click Freeze to freeze that feature and all features above it in the FeatureManager design tree.


    Features above the freeze bar are frozen – you cannot edit them, and they are excluded from rebuilds of the model. Frozen features are indicated by a lock icon and gray text.