Do files reduce in size as they get decluttered?

[vitaprimo]

When I first started using Designer I came up by accident with this gorgeous gradient, somehow I exported and lost the original one. Since I didn't know how to do anything at the time, I just embedded it in other stuff when I wanted it.

I just discovered those files, They're very simple designs 14MB in size. I opened them and now that I know stuff, a few seconds later I finally recreated that gradient after years, and updated the design to remove the embedded files and make the it lighter. I saved it, closed it but it remained 14MB in size.

I opened it again, copied the artboard and ⌥⇧⌘N it. Also, since these were a series of files, all around the same 14MB because of the (now removed, embedded image) I went through them and copied their artboards to that one new file and updated them too while I did so, double checking in the Resource Manager there's nothing left embedded, quit Designer just to be safe. None of them reduced their size, while the size of the new file with the contents of all of the old ones is around 40KB.

Are AFDESIGN files like VMDK files or something? Can they shrink at all??

I'd like to keep my crappy files to remember how much I sucked but not if they need to be recreated all.

Anyway, I hope there's good news soon on mail mailbox. Thanks! :)

[walt.farrell]

File > Save As with a new name should remove the wasted space.

[thomaso]

Additionally to Walt's hint: You can turn embedded resources into linked resources without in the Resource Manager with the button "Make linked…".