I worked on a new file for about an hour. The file has no symbols and maybe 100 layers. However, I’ve noticed that Sketch v25.1 becomes very slow when I try to undo something 20 steps back. Each step takes about 0.5 seconds. Going back 10–20 steps take at least 5–10 seconds.
Why does Sketch get so slow on such a basic task?
Using MacBook Pro M2 32GB RAM
Video
Hi Paulius! Thanks for the time you dedicate to report your findings.
I want to reproduce the environment you’re in, as closely as possible. Could you provide us with the following:
If you prefer, you can send these through productsupport@sketch.com.
We’ll take a look at it!
Chip Apple M2 Max
Memory 32 GB
Startup disk Sequoia
macOS Sequoia 15.5
Plugins
This happens with any document you work on for a prolonged period of time.
I always struggled with Sketch when building large design systems, but this issue is also visible in smaller files. I would recommend asking your designers to work for a day without closing the file, and then try undoing and redoing 20 steps.
If I give you the file, you won’t notice the issue.
The problem will go away when you restart the Sketch app.
We’re taking a look and doing some testing. Thanks for reporting!
Do you have any updates on this issue?
I’ve been dealing with it for years. There is a fundamental problem at the core of your product. I hope you can focus on fixing it instead of adding new features.
Hi @Paulius, we’re actively looking at this issue, but it’s being a bit elusive at the moment. As requested before, an affected document would help us to narrow it down. Thanks for commenting!
I have had this kind of issue from time to time in the last year too, in multiple projects.
At some point, it seems like Sketch needs to be restarted and it fixes the issue.
The lag also appears when changing to the app from another one, using option-tab for example.
It never happens right after opening a document, only after a while.
edit: I can’t say if it’s worse since 2025.1, but that I had it before also.
Thanks for sharing your experience @Jean-Francois-b! We’ll try a combination of the actions you’re describing, thanks!
@JorgeF I have shared multiple files with @raulrincon @Cris @dfmedrano
I have included the links to those files again below. These files could be used to test basic performance issues.
Performance Test with 2K and 10K Symbols
Performance Test with Design System
I’m not sure how long you plan to ignore this issue, but it’s clear that there are serious problems with your product if you can’t figure out how to fix it after all these years.
One test I recommend is going to one of these files and ungrouping all the grouped symbols.
Testing for memory leaks requires working on a large design file for a few hours. After that, Sketch will slowly lose performance. These performance issues are consistent with many of my files that are on Sketch Cloud.
