Participant

Question

Why is Illustrator using so much RAM?

Forum|Forum|10 months ago
March 4, 2025
6 replies
3057 views

How is it that Illustraror needs to use 44GB+ of memory on a file that is 400MB in size. How is that even possible?

Currently my Illustrator program has been (Not Responding) now for 24 minutes. Memory usage jumps from 4GB, 19GB, 34GB, 44GB, 36GB, and now it's down to 17MB and still not responding. What is going on?

This is an ongoing issue with Illustrator even when working with minimal size files. My files are not all tha complicated and don't include anything drastically complex. I've researched and adjusted my settings to oprimize the programs speed. Reduced saves, Unchecked background services and done everything I can think of to try and increase the speed of Illustrator, but yet it still continuiously wants to be a resource hog and utilize more memory than the entire instalation of all programs on my computer. There has to be a program issue that is allowing such large amounts of memory to be used which is causing these lock ups and failures. Yesterday I lost 4 hours of work when Illustrator crashed and didn't recover any of my work.

The same with the day before and before that. This is causing my anxiety and stress.

These issues need to be resolved. The only thing I have not yet tried is a complete windows reinstall, but I don't believe that will resolve these issues. Everything else works fine.

For peace of mind, could Adobe support please respond to the following.

1. Please list all the possible steps to help reudce the amount of memory Illustrator uses.

2. Please list all the possible steps to help increase the speed of the Illustrator program.

3. Please list all the possible steps to help minimize the background features like AIMonitor and AIRobin.

(Gone 10 years without using AI as a graphic artist, yes, I'm sure it's features are nice, but for someone who relies on speed these features only slow down my work process)

Time is money and I'm losing way to much time then I should be by having to deal with a program that does not manage memory properly.

Yes my programs are updated, Yes I have all the Windows updates. I'm not a Novice with Illustrator. I'm a professional graphic artist

Thank you for your time,

Anthony

Performance

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Whattheheckjoana

Participant

I have the exactly same problem all the time now. Using M3 Macbook pro with 36GB RAM, it feels unnaceptable....

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Anubhav M

Community Manager

Hello @Whattheheckjoana,

I'm sorry to hear about your experience. Could you share more details, such as the version of the OS/Illustrator installed, and whether this issue occurs with all files, so we can better assist you? Also, try the suggestions shared in this help article (https://adobe.ly/4oEZ974) and share your observations.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Anubhav

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AnthonyB_DSDExpressAuthor

Participant

Anubhav,

It is not something as simple as everything described in the link you sent. Those are the basics and every Illustrator operator knows and understands the steps to take to try and resolve basic issues. The issue with Illustrators RAM memory issue comes down to no ryme or reason for what it does. Personally I could be scrolling through fonts, using the direct select tool to grab several items at a time, or zooming in and out. These are the most common times I have experienced this. Illustrator tends to create a hickup during these random action and goes into this memory eating mode. It seems as if it the application will freeze on X action for whatever reason and then if you attempt to make another action without knowing while it's stuck in processing the last action its stuck on it goes into a cycle of absorbing every ounce of RAM memory to try and recover or correct the issue, which then leads into waits times of sometimes hours to see if it will recover or not., 90% of the time it closes on an error. Sometimes the recovery works, often it does not. While the application is processing the error it's in a frozen state it just starts to consume every bit of RAM memory, which doesn't make any sense at all or allow me to identify what is causing the application to utilize so much memory when the file I'm working on is only 100mb or so and knowing that the application is around 2gb. So there is something in the background that is happening with Illustrator that will force it to consume 30,40 or 50GB of memory and bring my computer to an absolute stand still until it decideds to crash. That's the best way I can describe my experience.

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AreliMedia

Known Participant

I am experiencing this too, and it's slowing down my work productivity so much. Illustrator and Photoshop are hogging so much more memory than they used to for the same files I have been working on for the past 4 years, and my computer is freezing up trying to process the 26mg of memory AI and 11mg of PS are hogging, I get "you're out of memory space" errors now that I've never gotten before. The Adobe apps used to take up no more than like 15mg of memory together total. I work on small file sizes, all for screen view things, nothing crazy. This is maddening and so frustrating.

I've been working on Adobe apps for over 10 years. All my Mac and Adobe software/apps are updated. I'm losing so much work time while my computer tries to handle these apps now, it's awful.

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Anubhav M

Community Manager

Hello @AreliMedia,

That does seem strange. Could you share more details, like the exact version of the OS/Illustrator/Photoshop installed, a screenshot of the Memory usage after launching Illustrator without opening any files, and if you have any plugins enabled, so I can better assist you?

Also, try running Illustrator under a different administrator account (Windows / macOS) and share your observations.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Anubhav

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AreliMedia

Known Participant

All of my apps are on auto-update, so I'm on the current versions. AI v29.7.1, PS v26.10. Running Mac OS Squoia 15.6.1.

No plugins. On launch, they run lower memory, around 1GB. Once a file or two are opened the memory skyrockets. Again, these are very simple files nothing heavy.

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richardesignerUK

Inspiring

Same. My brand new M4 Mac Mini has apparantly run of out of memory using Photoshop and Illustrator! I thought 24GB of Ram would be enough, but apprantly not. I keep getting these 'Your system has run out of application memory' alerts. Check out the screenshot below! 19GB for Ai and 19GB for PS.

Bill Silbert

Community Expert

When I compare the memory usage in your screenshot to the activity monitor on my own system (2021 M1 Mac on Sonoma 14.6.1) I note that the most significant difference is actually that your Safari is using 7.09 GB of Memory while mine is only using 201.7 MB. This looks to me like there could be a fault with your system rather than from any specific programs. Are you using any third party plug-ins to your OS? Are you operating over a server on entirely on your local machine?

B

Bobby Henderson

Community Expert

Is the Illustrator file that is causing problems a normal print size file (letter, A4, etc) or is it something else, such as a large format style document (signs, vehicle wrap, etc)?

If it's a layout meant for large format printing/production make sure the document raster effects setting is set at a reasonable value. Something like the 300ppi default is sheer overkill for something like a vehicle wrap. Such a setting could seriously bog down Illustrator performance, especially if the layout has a lot of raster-based effects (glows, drop shadows, etc).

Makerman111111

Participating Frequently

Happening to me almost everyday now since the last 2 updates. It will never get better. Adobe is too poor to refactor their code or rebuild it from scratch. They only make 20 billion dollars a year from us, its not enough money to put a team together to bring this software into the 21st century. We are literally working on a singlecore app that was written in the 80s. They will never take care of us. They will hire people to tell you to reset your preferences and check for GPU updates.

30 thousand employees. 20 billion in revenue last year.

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Anubhav M

Community Manager

Hello @AnthonyB_DSDExpress,

Would you mind sharing more details, like if Illustrator behaves this way when working with files from a particular folder location like an external/network drive or a cloud-synced folder like Google Drive/Dropbox/etc and the version of the OS/Illustrator, so I can better assist you?

Also, try running Illustrator under Safe Mode (Windows / macOS) and under a different administrator account (Windows / macOS) and share your observations.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Anubhav

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AnthonyB_DSDExpressAuthor

Participant

Anubhav,

Apologies, this response never posted a few months ago, but was saved.🤦🏻

Illustrator Version 28.1

All my files are local. I don't use Cloud files and/or using Adobe cloud sync because they only slow things down.

I use a $4k ASUS ROG gaming windows computer with high speed DDR5 4800mhz RAM, dual 2TB Samsung 980 pro and Intel 2.5ghz 12th gen.

There is only one account setup on this computer and it doesn't matter if I run illustrator in safe mode or not. Different users and/or safe mode does not make any difference. The results are still the same. High intense games like Cyberpunk and Witcher 3 run perfectly on my system. So I know it's not hardware.

The files are only 6" sticker designs. Yes surely there are some shading and mesh layers to give these designs a realistic look, but nothing that illustrator shouldn't be able to handle.

And no we have this whole AI addition of features to the program which only eats up more resources. 😭 There should be a basic illustrator version and a seperate AI version. I don't need AI. I need more resources freed to optimize speed. The amount of money I lose having to wait for illustrator to move an object or render thing is costing my and thousands of other artists a lot of time and money.

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AnthonyB_DSDExpressAuthor

Participant

And again, this doesn't happen all the time. I could be going through 12 designs and have no problem and then all of a sudden illustrator wants to puke in its own mouth and throw up all over me. It's random. There is never any reason that I can determine that why it does this. But it just wants to lock up and start utilizing GBs of RAM for no reason.

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