Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the truth is that Intel macs just don’t hold up anymore. I’m guessing that you didn’t have this issue with <= v101.9, which if accurate, is actually quite impressive.
If possible, you can get a good condition used mbp m1 pro on ebay for like $600 USD. In practice, an entry level 14/16" mbp with m1 pro is 2-4x more powerful, not including the gains from Apple Silicon-native software.
Your report is valid of course, but ultimately you’re only going to get so far running your current machine.
I’ve encountered a similar performance issue since updating to the latest version this morning. During a routine screen upload to Zeplin, my MacBook Pro (2019, M1, 16 GB) became unresponsive and eventually restarted. According to Activity Monitor, Sketch showed an unusually high spike in memory usage, it was consuming 24.99 GB of my 16 GB machine. I’m quite surprised that this update was released without more thorough testing.
@MaarijH I believe the issue you’re experiencing is more to do with Zeplin than Sketch, and is one they’re looking into, based on other reports. Naturally we’ll work with them if needed to help resolve.
Mine is consuming about 24 GB out of my 16 GB machine. There is a major memory usage issue in the latest release.
Now, my team is waiting for some work to be uploaded to them, and I am waiting for the Sketch team to release the fixed version update.
In this case, we’d like more details about your issue to ensure we’re not talking about a potential memory leak.
Please gather and send us logs of what is happening while Sketch’s memory consumption is going up. Please follow these steps to get the log files containing the information we need to investigate this scenario. See:
Open the Mac app and open the documents to reproduce the issue.
Launch the Terminal App (found in Applications/Utilities) and input this command: sample Sketch 90 -wait -mayDie -file ~/Desktop/Sample-$(date "+%Y-%m-%d_%H.%M.%S").txt
Attempt to reproduce the issue or set of actions that might end up in these memory figures. Note that 90 refers to the number of seconds this sample will be “listening” to Sketch. More time could gather more information, but it will be trickier to read on our end, so that should suffice, even if you need more time to get into this problem.
After the time has passed, this will save a text file named “Sample” with the current date to your desktop.
Please attach the resulting file to an email to productsupport@sketch.com. I suggest not posting this sample log in this public thread and writing to us instead via email. I hope you understand.
Also, as some other users have noted already, we must consider the hardware you’re using and the type of documents you’re throwing into the mix as the reason for these memory issues. However, as I’m writing this, I also see a post from @MaarijH stating other memory issues.
@MaarijH could you follow the same steps above? We’ll take a closer look at it.
Hi @Phy , are you suggesting that we should bin our 4-5 years old machines and start considering upgrading our machines each time a software bug arises?
@MaarijH taking a closer look to the screenshot you attached, I really think that @freddiewrites suggestion is spot-on. When you see sketchtool as the source of memory allocation, this means that a plugin is the one taking these system resources. I would consider contacting Zeplin about your issue.
That doesn’t make my suggestion of submitting a sample file less valuable though. We’d like to take a look at it.
Hi @JorgeF,
Just followed your testing instructions, and sent the SAMPLE and the Crash Report to the Product Support team via email.
Let me explain a little here as well:
I conducted tests using the latest version of Sketch, replicating the scenario that has been causing my MacBook Pro to crash. Here are the details of both attempts:
Attempt 1:
I used an existing project artboard (screenshot attached) that is relatively small and contains only a few components.
I attempted to upload this artboard to Zeplin.
JorgeF provided a terminal test command with a 90-second timer, which I adjusted to 300 seconds for extended observation:
sample Sketch 300 -wait -mayDie -file ~/Desktop/Sample-$(date “+%Y-%m-%d_%H.%M.%S”).txt
During the upload, Zeplin remained stuck at “Step 1/3: Inspecting artboards.”
After approximately 4 minutes, the system became completely unresponsive. Around the 7-minute mark, all three screens flashed pink, and the MacBook restarted, displaying the Apple logo.
Upon reboot, a system crash report was generated (attached via email).
No sample file was created on the Desktop as expected.
Artboard, which I was trying to upload:
Sorry, your chat system isn’t allowing me to attach more than 1
Attempt 2:
I created a brand-new, minimal artboard titled “FRAME,” containing only a single text element: “This is a TEST.”
I reran the same terminal command, this time with a 3-minute timer.
The system experienced some cursor lag during the process, but the upload to Zeplin eventually completed.
In this attempt, the sample file was successfully generated (attached via email).
Artboard/Frame I have managed to upload, looks like this:
Thanks for the detailed info, @MaarijH. We’ve filed your case internally and we’ll study it.
If possible, please report it to Zeplin as well. I’m under the impression this could be an issue on their end, and they might need to study your case and require more information too. Your best bet is to drop them a message on this contact form.
To clarify: as a third-party developer, Zeplin uses a plugin they developed to connect with Sketch, so we can’t look at that code and determine the root of this issue on their end.
Let us know what they say so we can better understand the issue!
Hi @MaarijH
Can you double check that you’re running the latest Zeplin version and if possible, a copy of the first file you attempted to export? I looked into a similar case yesterday, but in my case, I could export to Zeplin without issues. You can share your file to our support email productsupport@sketch.com
My laptop is less powerful than yours: M1 Macbook Air, 8GB; and I could export a frame with just over 70 images in under 30 seconds, no beachballing or lag. Here are the screenshots
Ha no of course not. This transition (from Intel to Apple Silicon) was the most massive hardware update in Mac history.
You and everybody should do whatever you want. However, even Apple is likely about to sunset support for Intel hardware in their next OS — smaller Apple developers are unlikely to be able to provide quality support for too much longer.
If I’m incorrect, awesome. I was super hype about my Intel MBP; bought it myself and it was a major milestone for me.
Unfortunately same here.
I lost almost whole work day trying to upload in Zeplin. At least 5 time I had to force restart my machine.
At the end my solution to finish my work and upload it was to downgrade Sketch. But the file I had already opened with the Athens version of Sketch is a bit broken and I had to use tricks and there..
So, with the old Sketch version, Zeplin works as usual (no huge memory usage and no crash).
I just retested and exported 20+ frames from the latest version of Sketch to Zeplin. Worked smooth and fast. Can you double check that you’ve updated to the latest Zeplin version?
If you’re still experiencing issues, please share with us a copy of your affected document to productsupport@sketch.com
Here’s a screenshot of my latest export, note the scrollbar on the export progress pop over, I uploaded a good amount of frames without issue.
Hi, @dfmedrano!
Everything was updated in Sketch. Today I had send many reports after Sketch (Version 2025.1.1 (203387) crashes.
Also all of my Art boards into my work file are kind of invisible.
All the crashes happened after I try to use proposed “convert all groups to frames” today.
Certainly! Here’s a more professional version of your message:
Hi @JorgeF ,
I’m currently using the latest version of Zeplin. To be thorough, I uninstalled the application and performed a fresh install, but the issue persists.
Btw, I am already in contact with your (greatly helpful) support team via email.
Thanks for this update. The best option we have now is to have a look at your affected file. It seems something’s going on when you convert the groups in your file to frames. You can share your file to productsupport@sketch.com .
I couldn’t retrieve any crash logs just with your name; can you confirm in the email the address you sent the reports from? Many thanks in advance
In the meantime one option that can work is the following:
Undo the groups to frames conversion. You may have to go back a few versions in your Sketch document.
Try exporting to Zeplin without converting groups to frames
@dfmedrano Thank you for your suggested help.
I find how to fix the issue with the frames - because previously my Аrtboards has been set with a background color, so now in the Frames I have to re-set this color from “Appearance” in the Layout panel and then the content become visible. But I have to do that to all my over 10000 frames
Also some of the text layers have lost their alignment ‘s behavior, because of the Sketch’ Update changes and they also will be manually re-set.
