Illustrator saves files unusually large.

[carson_3956]

After updating to v29.1 version of Adobe Illustrator, the design files have become very large when saved, and I don't understand why. For example, I opened an old file that was about 500MB on an external hard drive, and when I saved it as a new file in the Documents folder, the size increased to over 4GB.

Yesterday, I was shocked when this software saved a file that reached 11GB and took about 30 minutes. As a result, my 32GB RAM is always full, constantly at 90-100% during the process. What should I do to fix this? Thank you everyone for reading!

[tarewahsh]

from 2009

[tarewahsh]

From 2009

[SavMa]

Having this same issue since I installed v30.1 this week.

A file we created in October 2025 was originally 50,000 kb jumped to 1,378,450 kb after only adding 4 vector squares. How does this even happen?

[Anubhav M]

Hello @Savannah_Maguire7557,

I'm sorry to hear you're having similar trouble with Illustrator. Could you try the suggestions shared above by the experts to see if they help? If the problem persists, kindly share a link to a few sample files along with screenshots of the settings used, so we can check them with the team.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Anubhav

[SavMa]

I'm unable to share any client related files or details, unfortunately.
None of the solutions above helped. The only way I was able to fix the
issue was to go back to version 29.8.3.

Resaving the exact same file on Illustrator v29.8.3 significantly decreased
the file size.

[HARSHIKA_VERMA]

Hi SavMa,

To further investigate the issue, could you let us know if this occurs with all older version files? Since you cannot share the file with us due to confidentiality, would you be able to provide a sample file through a private message?

We will do our utmost to assist you.

Thank you,

Harshika