macOS Illustrator: Swatches missing/hidden from panel when switching documents

[Derek Holiman]

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

[Monika Gause]

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]

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]

I cannot reproduce that.

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

MacOS

[Carla_Midford]

The only "solution" I've found for this issue is to only have one document open at a time. Given my job and the fact that I have to be accessing multiple documents at once, this is so annoying.

[Ton Frederiks]

@Derek Holiman there is a UserVoice report about this.

But it is about a beta version:

https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/939477-illustrator-desktop-beta-bugs/suggestions/50286393-s...

[Michele Weisbart]

Yes, this is so annoying!. Hopefully there will be a fix soon!

[Derek Holiman]

Yes. This. Exactly.

Although switching with CMD-TAB vs. simply selectiong the document didn't matter. Neither did RGB vs. CMYK.

So, you had this behavior prior to 29.7.1? 

On 29.6.1 I did not experience this behavior. All was good with swatches.

Also started by resetting Illustrator prefs and that did nothing.

[Carla_Midford]

I have also encountered this issue today! Funny thing is, with the last version (29.6.1) of Illustrator, I was having issues with my pattern swatches (which is still not fixed). Now I can't even access my swatches/patterns... so I guess Adobe's solution to my pattern problem is to remove my access to them altogether. I feel like I am experiencing adobe induced psychosis.

[Simon5CE7]

I'm also experiencing this issue. The only way I can get the swatches to reappear is by copying and pasting a shape (or anything) from one document into another. However, as soon as I switch between the documents the swatches then disappear again. I've attached some screenshots to demonstrate this:

1 = document A, 2 = document B, 3 = shape from document B copy and pasted into document A.

It must be a bug, as there doesn't appear to be a logical reason for this to happen.

[Ton Frederiks]

If you want to try this Beta: Build 29.9.6. The problem seems to have been solved.

The beta is available from the Creative Cloud desktop app.

[Derek Holiman]

Curious...

Are we waiting on something special to release the fix? Is there a "schedule" to follow? Staffing issues? "Just let them have to deal with it, we'll get around to it some day, they'll survive!"

If you have a fix for a problem we are all experiencing can we have it?

I'm pretty sure we're all paid up on our monthly subscription dues, I know I am, Including the price increases.

Again, just curious. What's the reasoning?

Hell meanwhile... I just ran an update for Photoshop... for bug fixes... again. It's like Photshop releases an update more than I breath.

[laustrick]

the same thing is happening to me, same thing didn't happen yesterday, i've loaded and saved swatches and when i go to another document they disappear, and as of today "recent swatches" is there. i'm on a 2025 macbook air M4 running sequoia 15.6. : |

[mhd6]

Having this issue as well. I can "Add Used Colors" to the Swatches... but if I even glance at another tab in Illustrator, all the swatches will disappear!

I wish Adobe would test their generative AI crap more thoroughly before unleashing it on people who have work to get done. 😐

[dunazee]

I'm having this issue as well, but intermittently. The only way to solve it is to click on the show swatches button at the bottom of the swatch palette. It's an easy fix, just annoying. 

I have Show Recent Colors turned off.

I quit Ps, InDe, and Acrobat Pro and the Ai color palette seems normal. Fired them all back up and it's still acting as it should. Hmph. 

Ai 29.7.1, Mac OS 15.6.1. 

FWIW, I cannot use a beta version of anything on the company-owned hardware.