topic Re: Help determining what is causing this file to be so large? in AutoCAD Forum

Help determining what is causing this file to be so large?

ellastudio — Mon, 28 Apr 2025 21:44:21 GMT

Hi all,

I'm hoping someone here might be able to help me figure out why my DWG file has ballooned in size. The drawing has been passed around and worked on by several people, but it's a relatively simple 2D site base — mainly linework, hatches, dimensions, multileaders, and blocks. No 3D elements or complex rendering.

I suspect there may be a block or set of blocks that are causing the file size to spike, but I’m not sure how to pinpoint which one(s). I've already tried standard cleanup steps like purge and audit, copying line work to a clean file.

Despite that, the file size remains large and causes performance issues and sharing issues.

Does anyone know a good way to identify if a specific block (or type of content) is contributing heavily to the file size? Or are there any other less-obvious cleanup tips you'd recommend?

Thanks in advance!

Here is a link to the file: https://we.tl/t-81ps5xvVBf

Re: Help determining what is causing this file to be so large?

paullimapa — Mon, 28 Apr 2025 21:28:58 GMT

Use the eTransmit command to package all files in zip format & if you have dropbox or onedrive post the zip file there and then share that link here.

Re: Help determining what is causing this file to be so large?

ellastudio — Mon, 28 Apr 2025 21:44:59 GMT

thanks! just added a wetransfer link.

Re: Help determining what is causing this file to be so large?

paullimapa — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 01:00:46 GMT

It's all the Annotative Hatches.

Once those are selected & changed to non-annotative the dwg sized reduced dramatically

So if you want to keep the annotative feature for hatches, then you may have to live with the larger drawing size.

FYI: Purging these blocks made no difference: