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Avinash Singh Kotwal
Adobe Employee
Avinash Singh Kotwal
Adobe Employee
June 10, 2025
Question

We’re working on improving Illustrator’s save performance – tell us about your experience!

  • June 10, 2025
  • 1 reply
  • 140 views

Hey everyone,

I'm a Product Manager on the Adobe Illustrator team, and I wanted to reach out directly to this community.

As part of our ongoing performance work, we're focusing specifically on improving save times—especially for complex files. We know saving can sometimes take longer than expected, and we want to make it faster, more reliable, and less disruptive to your workflow.

We’d really appreciate your input:

·       Have you experienced long save times in Illustrator?

·       What constitutes "long" for you? (5 seconds, 30 seconds, minutes?)

·       Does it happen with specific types of files (e.g., large images, lots of artboards, embedded assets, linked files, etc.)?

·       On average, how long does it take to save those files?

·       Are you using foreground save, background save, or do you notice differences between them?

Any examples, patterns, or insights you can share will help us target improvements better. Feel free to drop screenshots, details about your system setup, or even just rough estimates.

Thanks in advance for helping us shape a faster Illustrator!

1 reply

creative explorer
Community Expert
creative explorerCommunity Expert
Community Expert
July 5, 2025

@Avinash Singh Kotwal 

Have you experienced long save times in Illustrator?
For me, when I work in Illustrator, it truly depends  on how intricate the designs are and what I have open in the background. I tend to stream music in the background, and have a few applcaitions open as well such as Photoshop, and Handbrake may be processing a video, while working in Illustrator. If I noticed that I be doing something intricate, I would hold off on certain tasks. I do have 16 gigs of RAM and an older i7 MacBook Pro. Most cases, it's do-able.

What constitutes "long" for you? (5 seconds, 30 seconds, minutes?)

If I have for 30 seconds, then I am worried! 

Does it happen with specific types of files (e.g., large images, lots of artboards, embedded assets, linked files, etc.)?
Linked files shouldn't be an issue. If it was embedded then yes, that is an issue. But, I mainly will use it as drawing program

On average, how long does it take to save those files?

If I cam creating a thumbnail for my YouTube channel, typically it saves within seconds. 

 

Are you using foreground save, background save, or do you notice differences between them?
Honestly, I have 'knock on wood' ben fortunate that my saving has been fairly good. 

I am quite happy with Adobe Illustrator when it comes to saving! 

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