Strange File Size Increase

[lb Cake]

Is it normal for one file to have radically different file sizes? Since update 1.9 I've experienced an issue with saves in which saving an existing file results in the file's size increasing by roughly 80%? The image below is a screen shot of my Windows Explorer, the highlighted files are the exact same file. File 09.5.0 was a save over an existing file, while 09.6.0 is a Save As of the same file, yet the size is 80% bigger. 

I'm also experiencing an issue where the Date stamp is not updating with each save, again you can refer to the attachment. The highlighted documents were saved mere minutes apart, yet 09.5.0 retains the time stamp from its original creation point (3/10/2021 10:21 AM). The only way the Date updates is with a Save As.

[carl123]

1. Whenever you work on an Affinity file redundant data is not always deleted straight away (for performance reasons), hence the file can be larger than it really is. Whenever you do a Save as... to a new file name Affinity gets rid of all redundant data in the file and hence the new file can be a lot smaller than previously. (This is normal)

2. Windows Explore has many date fields, the one you have displayed may just be the "creation date" field. If you right-click that toolbar (where it says Name Date Type Size Tags) you should be able to also add the "date modified" field which will update every time the file is modified

 

[Pšenda]

13 hours ago, lb Cake said:

File 09.5.0 was a save over an existing file, while 09.6.0 is a Save As of the same file, yet the size is 80% bigger.

File size is 71,151 KB vs 57,350 KB, so the size of the SaveAs file is not bigger, but smaller! This corresponds to the description from Carl (point 1), because with SaveAs the file is defragmented and thus its size is optimized.

[lb Cake]

11 hours ago, carl123 said:

1. Whenever you work on an Affinity file redundant data is not always deleted straight away (for performance reasons), hence the file can be larger than it really is. Whenever you do a Save as... to a new file name Affinity gets rid of all redundant data in the file and hence the new file can be a lot smaller than previously. (This is normal)

2. Windows Explore has many date fields, the one you have displayed may just be the "creation date" field. If you right-click that toolbar (where it says Name Date Type Size Tags) you should be able to also add the "date modified" field which will update every time the file is modified

 

Thank you Carl for the clarity I genuinely appreciate it. Your explanation does raise a question however, at what point will the save file normalize its size and delete the redundant data? 

I'm just musing here, but I do find it peculiar that Designer's behavior seemed to change so drastically with the implementation of 1.9. I haven't changed anything on my end, yet Designer seems to have incorporated new behaviors apart from the issues identified in this post. 

[lb Cake]

Just a quick update regarding the Date stamp. I have made visible the Date Modified column and I do see that the information is updating in real time. 

[carl123]

12 hours ago, lb Cake said:

Your explanation does raise a question however, at what point will the save file normalize its size and delete the redundant data? 

Not sure, Serif are very secretive about their file structure so we just have snippets of information they have released over the years.

If I remember correctly, first they said the file is "purged" after so many saves then later it changed and they said the file is now purged once the redundant data reaches a particular percentage of the file (25% ?).

Doing a File > Save as... occasionally is useful for backups of your work in progress but it would be nice to be able to force a purge on the original file, especially for users that don't have much disk space.

Something like holding the <Shift> key down when doing a normal File > Save to force a purge to take place

[Pšenda]

1 hour ago, carl123 said:

but it would be nice to be able to force a purge on the original file

I once tried to suggest something similar:

 

 

[lb Cake]

10 hours ago, carl123 said:

Not sure, Serif are very secretive about their file structure so we just have snippets of information they have released over the years.

If I remember correctly, first they said the file is "purged" after so many saves then later it changed and they said the file is now purged once the redundant data reaches a particular percentage of the file (25% ?).

Doing a File > Save as... occasionally is useful for backups of your work in progress but it would be nice to be able to force a purge on the original file, especially for users that don't have much disk space.

Something like holding the <Shift> key down when doing a normal File > Save to force a purge to take place

I discovered yesterday that the file size normalizes every third save. For example, if I were to create a file named File 0 that first save would have the precise size. The next two saves would contain redundant data making the file 80% larger. The third save of the same document would delete the redundant data and restore the file to its appropriate size, whatever that is.

It's strange behavior that I don't recall experiencing with any of the other graphic design software I've used in the past, but at least I know my files won't continue to grow exponentially with each save.