"Save As..." Behaviour in Affinity Publisher (possibly other apps too) - Mac OsX 14.7

[pixelculturist]

Hello i ran across following behaviour that is possibly inconsistent and leads to the users files being spread all across their folders and volumes.

To replicate this behaviour do the following:

Save file "test1" in affinity publisher in user Folder "A".

Save file "test2" in affinity publisher in user Folder "B".

Save file "test3" in affinity publisher in user Folder "C".

Close all files.

Using the "Open recent..." menu choose the file "test1".

Make changes to the file "test1" and use "save as..." to save the file.

Now the inconsistency happens.

The default folder to save to will now be the last folder a file was saved to - in this case Folder "C". Whereas the file that was opened is located in folder "A". A consistent behaviour for a user would be that the folder in the the file picker is Folder "A", as thats where the file is located.

To verify that this is a inconsistency i also tried this process in photoshop. And the resulting folder of the "Save as..." command was always the folder the opened file is located in.

Possible fixes?

It might be that the Save as... command uses the last Folder a file was saved to as default folder - this should be changed, in case of an opened file to pick the folder where the opened file is located.

 

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forums @pixelculturist

This situation has, to my knowledge, been extant since the Affinity applications were first released.

See, for example, from 2016, and still being added to: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/17825-default-location-for-save-as-and-export/
...and many other threads.

There is no ‘workaround’ for it, as far as I know.

[Komatös]

With ‘Save as...’ all programmes I know forget the original directory. Some of them then open a root path and others just open the last used directory.

The question then arises as to where the source location information should be stored. In the file itself? Difficult with formats such as .png, .jpg, .pdf etc.

With Affinity formats, it can be placed in the header or in a side load file. But here the wish is the father of the thought.

[lepr]

Good luck! We are still waiting for that change/option after a decade of countless requests and complaints. Serif seems to be especially stubborn with the more unusual behaviours of the apps. 

[pixelculturist]

This behaviour isn't cohesive with user experience on other apps. It's a medium-severe usability issue on a core functionality and it's highly questionable why it works as it does? Out of comfort from the developer side?

You do not need to save the core file path anywhere, you actually should have this file handle in memory - else: where would the "save" function know to save the file to?

I also noticed that this issue exists since 2016...

[Oufti]

2 hours ago, GarryP said:

There is no ‘workaround’ for it, as far as I know.

I also find this very annoying – to be polite – but I've found a function in Affinity software that helps me when I don't remember where the file was stored:
Menu File > Show in Finder. 

[PaulEC]

30 minutes ago, Oufti said:

I've found a function in Affinity software that helps me when I don't remember where the file was stored:
Menu File > Show in Finder. 

On Windows it's File Menu > Open Folder in Explorer.

[Pšenda]

On 4/5/2025 at 10:07 AM, Komatös said:

With ‘Save as...’ all programmes I know forget the original directory.

This behavior suits me very well - when I create sources for a new project, I open files from different directories, edit them, and then use SaveAs to save them to the common project directory. If the path to SaveAs were to change all the time, I would be grayed out (which I am anyway).

So it is clear that these are two completely different and incompatible approaches, which could be solved with a specific/additional "SaveAs to source", or using a modifier key. Switching the behavior in Preferences is possible, but the option to choose to change the behavior directly before saving can be practical.

[Bound by Beans]

On 4/5/2025 at 11:43 AM, pixelculturist said:

This behaviour isn't cohesive with user experience on other apps. It's a medium-severe usability issue on a core functionality and it's highly questionable why it works as it does? Out of comfort from the developer side?

You do not need to save the core file path anywhere, you actually should have this file handle in memory - else: where would the "save" function know to save the file to?

I also noticed that this issue exists since 2016...

Agreed, and it's an atrocity that really disrupts workflows.

[Oufti]

On 4/5/2025 at 10:07 AM, Komatös said:

With ‘Save as...’ all programmes I know forget the original directory.

At least all Apple apps I tested just now (Preview, Numbers or TextEdit) open the original folder where the file is stored when asking to Save as. 

I usually prefer this behaviour – and in case I need to save in another directory recently used, I find them in the recent folders, at the bottom of the list, under the file tree and the iCloud library: 

[Komatös]

@Oufti Merci beaucoup pour ces informations. Je suis encore un novice de MacOS et je me familiarise lentement mais sûrement avec ce système d'exploitation.