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Derek Holiman
Derek Holiman
Known Participant
August 6, 2025
Answered

Swatches disappear in Swatches panel when switching between documents in 29.7.1 on macOS

  • August 6, 2025
  • 11 replies
  • 5121 views

Another adventure with Illustrator this morning...

 

The color swatch tiles will disappear (hide, not show, go away, whatever) from the swatches panel when switching between open documents. The List and Thumbnail view buttons are grayed out.

 

What does show when switching documents is apparently new feature of Recent Colors.

 

The swatch library is loaded. Don't take me down the path of how to load a swatch library.

 

Accessing the panel drop down menu and selecting something like thumbnail view size will cause them to reappear. Until you switch to another document, then the swatches disappear again. We repeat the process..

 

Old documents. New documents. Worked fine yesterday.

 

MacOS Sequoia 15.6

Illustrator 29.7.1

 

<Title renamed by moderator>

 

    Correct answer Simon5CE7

    It looks like that, @Ton Frederiks. I can confirm that the issue is no longer affecting me in the new Illustrator release 29.8.1.

    11 replies

    Show previous replies
    Monika Gause
    Community Expert
    Monika GauseCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    August 6, 2025

    So there are swatches in all those documents.

    But when you hide the recent solors, then those swatches are gone?

     

    Swatches in Illustrator are document specific. Only the recent colors are not.

    Derek Holiman
    Derek HolimanAuthor
    Known Participant
    August 6, 2025

    No. Not even close to what I said.

     

    All of the swatch tiles (default, any custom I added, any) in the Swatch panel disappear when I switch from one document to another. 

     

    New documengs, old documents. Documents with content. Documents without any content. Any document.

     

    Simply open and/or create new more than one document. All open at the same time. Then switch from one document to another. The swatches in the panel disappear. As soon as you make one of the other documents active you see the swatches simply disappear. It's like a damn David Copperfield show.

     

    To get the swatches back, you can toggle between list view and thumbnail view or make a selection in the panels menu to chnage swatch thumbnail size. 

     

    Forget about the recent colors feature. Behavior is the same with or without it active. Should have never mentioned it.

     

     

      Monika Gause
      Community Expert
      Monika GauseCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      August 6, 2025

      I cannot reproduce that.

      Switching from one document to the next does not hide the swatches.

      MacOS

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