Illustrator taking long to save

[Jada5EBE]

Okay hear me out, I've looked it up I tried other posted suggestions but they're not helping. 

maybe two weeks ago my illustrator started saving really slow maybe about 10 minutes per document. 

I down graded from 26.5 to see if an older version would help and maybe the new one has some bugs , same issue, I tried turning off background save  didn't help. 

I thought my document was too out so I spilt them up into smaller ones same issue, I tried pasting the layers in a new document. Same issue.

I'm not sure what to do, I can't finish my project for class, can anyone assist?

[Ton Frederiks]

Do you save local on your internal hard disk or on a external location (server, synced cloud folder)?

[Jada5EBE]

it is saved to my internal drive.

[Anubhav Majumder]

Hello @Jada5EBE,

Sorry to hear about this experience. As suggested by Ton, saving to an external/network drive or a cloud-synced folder can cause issues. Would you mind saving the file to a location on the internal hard drive like the desktop and checking if it helps?

Also, try resetting Illustrator's preferences by following the steps shared in this article (https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/kb/troubleshoot-preference-issues.html) and sharing your observations.
Disclaimer: Please note that resetting preferences will remove all custom settings, and Illustrator will launch with the defaults. You may take a backup of these settings from the location mentioned in the article.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Thanks,
Anubhav

[Mike_Gondek · Accepted solution]

First I always do a Save As and turn OFF pdf compatible.  You only need that ON if you are importing into InDesign or AE. Even if you are, that gives you some instant relief, to help you troubleshoot analyze the issue quicker.

Then we need to look at does this happen with all files or just this one. Make a new file draw a rectangle and do a save. If it saves slow you have a problem with your OS/Ilustrator/prefs.

If it saves fast, then do a lobotomy on the file. I delete half the suspicious items, do a save as to a dummy file name and repeat until have located the offending object. Things like nested symbols corrupt Illustrator, or a bad free typefont. Even 2 points directly on top of each other, if one is not needed.

[Jada5EBE]

I didn't want to do this because it was a good amount of layers to go through for each. but i did and it seemed like something random was corrupted in my file. 

[Mike_Gondek]

Glad you figured it out, and thankyou for getting back to us, so your post can help others in the future.