Affinity Designer using hundreds of gigabytes of storage

[KTDN]

Hello, 

I've been using Designer on My iPad Pro since it became available and I dig it.

However, I've run into a problem whereby the app is using massive amounts of storage which makes no sense. I have very few documents stored, fewer than a hundred, the vast majority of them are purely vector and no more than 5 or 6 include bitmap images, yet Designer is using 352 GB of disk space! 

looking at the info available it says that the app is using 922 MB and that documents & data are 351 GB. This is crazy! There is no conceivable way that the files I have in the app could be anywhere close to 351 GB.

At first I thought it might be related to the fact that I maxed out the available undos in settings, however, today I changed that to 500 and went through each file individually and erased all available history, this however did nothing to decrease the storage. I have also added a number of items to my assets, but they are also purely vector and I can't see them taking up this much storage either.

Surely this must be an issue with Designer itself? If Someone at Serif could reach out to me and help me sort this out or explain what is goin on here, it would be very much appreciated as I have been unable to backup my iPad now for over a month due to the massive amount of date required to do so — since I need the iPad daily I haven't been able to allow the 2 or 3 days required to make an iCloud backup. 

If any forum members have had this issue or know what causes this I would also be happy to hear any advice or suggestions.

thanks for reading

[Gabe]

Hi @KTDN,

Welcome to the forums. 

Try this first.

Plug your iPad into your Mac, open ITunes, select your iPad, under "file sharing" you should see a folder called "inbox". Drag that to your desktop and check its size.  

Quote

One layer at 15.1 megapixels should take 120MB - 15.1 million * 8 (16bits per pixel per channel) but when saved should get a bit smaller because of compression. All afphoto files are stored lossless so you will never achieve JPEG level compression without loosing data.

You can try to reboot your iPad. it might clear some of the cache. 

Let us know how it goes. 

Thanks,

Gabe. 

[KTDN]

Hello Gabe,

thanks for the info., however I’m not referring to Affinity Photo, the issue is with Affinity Designer and the vast majority of the files are on a single layer. Since it’s vector I don’t think the files can reach 150MB as vector is very small due to its nature of being purely mathematical in structure.

thanks all the same!

[gdenby]

Hi. KTDN,

If my memory serves, fingers crossed, some months ago I made a jigsaw puzzle in AD desktop. I placed an image, about 600Kb, as a child of the joined vector shapes. Then I divided the mass, so the puzzle pieces could be moved around separately. The file ballooned to about 22 Mb. Eventually, I figured out that each piece of the puzzle had the entire bitmap locked to it. You mentioned that you have several bitmaps in the files. Perhaps something similar is happening. Every vector object has a whole bitmap child layer attached to it, and that is where the file bloat is happening. 

[KTDN]

Thanks so much for the suggestion.

This isn’t the problem though, I’ve been through all of the files and none include bitmap images other than the few I already knew of. Since I do most of my illustrations in Procreate I always open bitmaps in Adobe Illustrator and convert using live trace which turns any bitmap into vector I then imported as PDF or SVG into Designer to work further. Since the entire folder of my illustrator work is less than 200 MB with over 300 files in total, it is simply impossible for Affinity Designer to suddenly balloon to over 300 GB.

[Paul Mudditt]

On 11/17/2018 at 10:57 AM, KTDN said:

Hello Gabe,

thanks for the info., however I’m not referring to Affinity Photo, the issue is with Affinity Designer and the vast majority of the files are on a single layer. Since it’s vector I don’t think the files can reach 150MB as vector is very small due to its nature of being purely mathematical in structure.

thanks all the same!

The file format for photo and designer are the same even with different file extensions afdesign and afphoto, so instructions are the same for either program.

[KTDN]

Thanks Paul,

although the instructions are the same, wouldn’t the size be different depending on if the data is vector or bitmap?

[KTDN]

Since my initial initial post the issue has worsened, Affinity Designer now shows that the app is using over 700 GB — and I have not used it since my original forum post, as I was attempting to backup over the weekend, unsuccessfully.

 

Bellow are 2 screenshots one taken on Saturday when I made the original post, and the other today. As you can see the storage used has doubled (this despite the fact that I only have 500 GB of internal storage). I am more certain than ever that this must be a software issue. 

 

Furthermore, I went and saved each file I have in Designer to iCloud Drive this morning and found that the contents of all files is less than 200 MB, there could be no way my Designer documents and data could over 700 GB.

 

I have emailed Serif directly about this but have still received no reply. If anyone else is experiencing this issue please post about your experience.

[Gabe]

Have you actually checked the project file sizes using the Files app?

[Denny]

Yeah, that seems like it could also be a bug with iOS and how it is reporting your storage given that you  have 512 GB of storage, it’s not possible for Affinity to be using that much.

If you’ve saved all of your Affinity Designer Documents to iCloud you should be safe to delete the app (you should see a message that documents in iCloud will be left alone) and then reinstall. Perhaps that will help. 

[KTDN]

Hi Denny,

I might have to. Serif replied to my email, they are also unsure as to what is happening.

[Denny]

I’ve seen at least one other report of this on Twitter.

[Zephan]

This issue has been dogging me for months. I’ve only just found that others are expriening it.

for me, i do have some large files with a lot going on, but no way is if taking up 21gig of data, as storage is telling me. Plus deleting files hardly changes this at all. It’s like designer is keeping cached versions of everything I’ve worked on (deleted or not), in memory. And my iPad is virtually full.

i can’t seem to export the files safely as PSDs as I’d like to, without AD crashing! 

I love the program but this is a major turn off for me. I really hope someone is working on a fix?

At the very least, the app needs to display what files are taking up what amount of storage, and not hide files. 

Any updates on this experience from other users??

[Gabe]

On 3/2/2019 at 9:20 PM, Zephan said:

i can’t seem to export the files safely as PSDs as I’d like to, without AD crashing! 

Hi there. Would you like to start a new thread on this issue, please? 

[Ooeh]

Hello. I’m sadly having this problem, too.

iPad 11.4. Affinity Designer. 

My iCloud backup drive I’ve is full - 203GB ? Ouch!

I contemplate reinstalling AD, but I have projects that I do not want to lose.

Can anyone provide or point me to step-by-step instructions to help me ensure and verify that my important projects are safely backed up? And after safely backing up important projects, how to reclaim the iCloud Drive space? 

See attached picture. I cannot seem to perform further backups. I do not understand how Affinity could be using so much space.

[DM1]

Be sure that any files you wish to keep are saved as .afdesign Files to a location other than the Affinity generated storage location. The Affinity storage folders and their content,  are deleted when the app is deleted.

If you have .afdesign Files in these locations, use Files app to move them from the Affinity folder to some other location and a folder you created. If you can't find the afdesign file you may need to open the project and use the Document Save a Copy menu to create the .afdesin file. Remember to save with history on. Don't save to the Affinity folder. 

[Ooeh]

Thanks, DM1! Very useful info. 

I’m still nervous to lose work but I guess I’ll have to save everything carefully (to a non-Affinity location) then uninstall/reinstall Affinity Designer in order to reclaim the storage space. 

PS - I’ve had loads of fun and productivity with this product. Hope you’re able to keep growing it!

[DM1]

I would recommend you get Documents app by Readdle (free). It is a great file manager and can access all sorts of locations (cloud/local/wireless). It allows you to create folders and nested folders. I have created my own Affinity Folders for Photo and Designer on both local iPad and Dropbox/iCloud. It makes it easy to sort files by subject under their own fsubfolders. You can select and move single of multiple files/folders. When you choose Open from Cloud in the Affinity app, you can navigate to Documents and see all your files.

[Ooeh]

Hm  I uninstalled/reinstalled but AD is still taking up loads of space.

My iCloud backup footprint is smaller now, but still 164 GB. It might be a bit smaller because I did not save all of my AD docs, not sure? It still seems inconceivable, especially for SVG.

How can I reclaim this space, or is this the price to pay for using this great software?

Ps, I appreciate the file mgmt tips, DM1. 

 

[Caleb O. L.]

I am having the same problem!  Designer has started to slow down. Now It is becoming increasingly difficult to save my projects in the cloud and Designer is starting to crash. I can’t figure out what the problem is. I looked in the settings at it showed that Designer was somehow taking up 212gb of 128gb. I’m not sure how to fix this problem. I’m wondering if anyone has figured out what the problem is and how to fix it?!?!

 

 

FIXED!!!!!!-

The problem is too many projects “saved” or stored within Designer  itself  I deleted and reinstalled the app which deleted all of my open projects  I really should have just gone through and deleted them.   I had made sure all of the important ones were backed up on iCloud before I deleted the app. Once I reinstalled Designer it wasn’t  bloated anymore because it deleted all of the projects.  

 

 

[doe]

Had the same problem on a way way smaller scale. Could solve it the same  way. Seems like the workflow on iPad needs to look like this to avoid the problem:

1) work on the project

 2) save to internal storage or iCloud

 3) Close the project. 
 

[DM1]

It is worth noting that Project files are like having tabs open on pc. They refer to files that are stored in Affinity 'sandbox' and take up iPad memory.

[Ooeh]

doe, thanks for your steps! When you say, “work on the project” and “close the project” do you mean “work on the document/close the document” (instead of “project”). Affinity designer on the iPad seems to use the word “project” to help you group your docs/files. But there’s no “close” button on a project, AKAIK. I can only see how to open/close particular documents. Would be nice if I could open/close an entire project but not sure how to do this?
 

DM1, does your comment about “open project files taking up memory” also mean that “with too many open files, when you save a file it might be bloated, with an extra large file size / footprint”?  I have a single file that is taking up 500 mb of iCloud storage, I can’t imagine why; it is svg with two small bitmap gradients (fills). Other similar files are much smaller, few megs. This one, each time I save it I use 500 mb network bandwidth to reupload + 500 mb iCloud storage. I’ve closed the file and reopened it; cleared its history; but giant file size persists. Perhaps I will try uninstalling/reinstalling affinity designer to close all the docs in the “workspace”- Not sure how that’s relevant to a specific file’s size but maybe? (thanks for the tip, Caleb!) fingers crossed!

 

[Sanity_Rose1]

I am having a similar problem.  Most of my iPad pro storage was being taken up by Affinity Photo projects.  I saved the projects to the iPad internal storage. Offloaded those projects to an external hard drive. Then I closed all of the projects. There were NO projects in the application. However, that storage space was never freed up. The only way to reclaim the space was to delete the application and reinstall it. 

I would prefer not to have to uninstall and reinstall the application each time I need to re-claim space.  Are there any suggestions? How can I reclaim that space without deleting the app?

[Gabe]

I had been testing this behaviour over the last 3 days, and found some interesting things, using an iPad 2017, 32gb.

I started by downloading a ~2.5gb file, in a folder on "On my iPad". I've duplicated that file ~100 times (which should be physically impossible on a 32gb storage) but perhaps it's using some sort of APFS to make the copies. However, in Settings > General > iPad storage, Files started to use up storage  ~300gb. I've deleted all the files yesterday morning, restarted the iPad several times, added and removed more files, and now the Files app is using 319GB of data, and there's absolutely nothing stored on "On my iPad" .