How to FIX LAG in Adobe Illustrator 2023 

Hope you enjoyed the new setup guys, smash that like button if you liked this tutorial!

I know that I have looked for tutorials about this thing in the past and then I gave up. Yesterday I couldn't stand Illustrator's performance anymore even though I have a very good computer and I found you. Thank you very much for your help! It really worked for me!

I've come to the conclusion that there are no people who don't have issues with illustrator - be it the overall performance, or the shitty reliability. The weird thing is that Illustrator used to be like a Kalashnikov in terms of stability. I can't say what happened or when, but it's kind of pathetic how little is being done to fix the issues.

For anyone here who doesn't want to buy that extension to reduce vector points: select object > simplify in illustrator, it works pretty good.

On top of this, If you're dealing with a very image heavy file, illustrator can end up chugging, especially when zooming, and panning, making things super frustrating. In such a situation, you can switch into outline mode (CTRL + Y), and pan over to whatever you need, or edit whatever vector, or text you have to. (Although be warned that outline mode also displays any objects outside of a clipping mask, which can make the whole setup look crowded) Illustrator also has a tendency to slow itself down with certain UI elements. For example: 1. If you're working with a file that has a ton of vectors, especially repetitive patterns of some sort, or just incredibly intricate vectors, and you need to select the whole thing, you will notice illustrator grind to a halt. To avoid this, you can CTRL+H to hide edges (the blue lines and dots that outline the vector shapes and edges). 2. If you have a ginormous number of objects that use gradients, absolutely avoid selecting all of them and trying to change their gradients all at once (this causes illustrator to draw the UI element for the gradient on each of these, causing Ai to crash), instead, change gradient on only one object, and use eyedropper tool to copy it to the others. These tips are fairly niche, but hopefully it helps somebody out there.

artwork I am working on is two colors, very simple shapes, and I am using the Shape builder tool to remove shapes and each shape I have to wait a really long time to delete them. I don't have many custom graphic styles, but I do have a few fonts, but there are no fonts in my illustration.

This worked beautifully for me. I thought the days of fast and responsive AI has passed. Thank goodness good performance is back! Thank you.

Thank you Jeremy - this has helped me alot

Thank you so much for this helpful video!! Please, could you tell what kind og first aid app you were using to reduce the amount of vector points?

I have been an illustrator user since version 1. I can honestly say that in terms of performance this latest version is the worst. Hidden tools load very slowly despite great onboard RAM, links on networks disappear. Generally the program is now so overloaded with features its beyond an illustrator/designers tool its just cumbersome and slow. Truly over adobe and their latest software offerings.

wow, thanks a lot, I checked on the CPU Performance and it worked surprisingly!

First two steps can be done simply by going to the Actions panel found in Window tab. There's an action called "Delete Unused Panel Items", and once you click on the play button, it'll take care of deleting all brushes, symbols and swatches

dope video! this helps a lot with day to day projects. subscribed!

For me was the animated zoom on my M1 Pro, that fixed it right away, thanks

I'm coming from Ai10.03 to the Ai2023 and I am finding all of these videos very helpful. I esp. need to get the Ai lag toned down! I usually use a LOT of layers and 1 of them has a lot of live text, which is often a problem. Today (my first time actually "playing around" with Ai2023 was horrible due to just the lagging going on. I will implement many of these ideas tomorrow. Thanks Much for the video! Cheers!

When you delete the brushes that’s only deleting them in that file right? Like they are still in your AI program if you then wanted to use those brushes?

Dude thank you for this you're doing God's work. When I adjust my GPU settings colors don't show in my project. Do you know why?

I wish I found these tips earlier! THANKS!

this ruled. extremely helpful

Thanks. Refresh these tips every update(s) if you can.

Thank you so much! Lifesaver❤

Yes! Thank you!!!

Thank you Jeremy! You saved my sanity! Much appreciated!

thanks alot brother

What about erasing shapes? It takes forever to delete the shapes how can I make this better please help?!!

I'm need some insight here, I'm using illustrator cc 23, sometimes gets a bit laggy. my specs are i7 3770, 16GB, 1050 ti 4GB. should I upgrade my comp? my first diagnose my specs is quite old, so if that is necessary, what would I choose first? CPU or GPU? I'm using GPU preview too. Sorry my bad English 🙃

This video saved my sanity! Thank you 🎉❤🎉❤🎉

thanks a million!!!

I think its cause of the new RTX 30 series, I upgraded my gpu and my illustrator has just been laggy. I guess the program can't hold up with the gpu.

That's useful ❤

Freaking thank you, idk what had happened but after I went from 4 GB of ram to 16 GB it just lagged turned off gpu performance off

If I turn off my GPU (on a brand new Dell XPS), my selection lag improves but it then lags on zooming in and out (non animated). So I get to choose which lag I like best. Thanks, Adobe.

Thanks Bro

Very, very good.

Dude...SELECT > OBJECT > STRAY POINTS. Works instantly. Thanks for the other tips! :)

How to solve the problem of crashing the Illustrator program after moving it from the disk (c)

Top!

A freaking threadripper with a 3090 and 64GB of RAM and I still gotta do this crap.... Unbelievable...

Can you make a tutorial for windows 11 lite

Nice one man! Just need to adjust your camera angle a bit

My Ai is taking too long to open... what i do??

SONG? SONG ID PLZ

The fact that I'm on a brand new M2max mb pro with 32bg and a 1tb ssd and we're talking about stuff like turning off save in background and deleting extra files just to get AI to be useable is... laughable. Mac pages handles all the text wrap adjustments and all of this stuff like butter, albeit without quite the same level of power. But honestly, this version of illustrator is just a mess.

Newer version slows down very quickly to the degree that I had to downgrade it to 2021 😕

How to delete unnecessary fonts in Illustrator?

Good Lord, this latest release is HORRIBLE! Barely able to move anything, saving crashes the program - so angry so freaking furious!!! Can’t get anything done!!!

The 3d effect of CC 2022 sucks man..literally by mistake I downloaded some 3d texture materials it busted my machine up...too much lagging in the new version.....

Turn OFF your GPU Performance if you have lagg/slowing problem in illustrator 2021

No. And no again. The tutorial applies for EVERY Illustrator out there. (Nice and clear tutorial, BTW), but lag issues appeared with specific 2022/2023 versions. Including lag in Photoshop. Really specific tools too. For instance Blend is laggy in Illustrator, and Clone Tool is laggy in Photoshop. No system resource hick-ups, all specifications much better. Gosh, I miss Win 8.1 and version 2019. Basically same programs, same files. And now it is SHIT. Thank you, Adobe. Thank you, Microsoft.

Press the number 0 in this video 3 times at 0:00 and then let the video play. Tell me what you guys heard

Animated zoom and real-time drawing gave no problems back in 1999 when I first used AdobeIllustrator on a 32MB mac. You are (and Adobe is) telling us that we have to give up on WYGIWYS features while running AdobeIllustrator on 32GB machines. Adobe should begin spending 1 percent of their advertising revenue on developing software to keep WYGIWYS going.

THse are not helpful, if youre adobe illuatrator is lagging and delaying .. the Very best thing to do is UPGRADE RAM ATLEAST 16gb minimum , Not necessary to install high end Gpu since illistrator is vector based so rendering is not that a huge problem... Deleting fonts , brush, graphic styles is very unnecessary actions since those features only takes very very very very minimal space to your sysTem....

Useful, but please, drop the music.

Adobe illustrator it's just a stupid outdated software that is bad optimized and very expensive with lazy features. I have lags with 3900x AMD, currently searching for a solid alternative.

Illustrator LAGS because it is a SHIT software. Very very badly written (Indesign is waaay better even Photoshop is), I know I use it all day every day... Illustrator is a very old software with a very old codebase this is the root of the problem (Indesign is much-much younger I used it when they replaced PageMaker with it) Why than I use it???? Because there is no real alternative it is industry standard. I know there is AffinityDesigner which IS faster .... sorrily I cannot change, all partners want Illustrator files from me...

Adobe has gotten steadily worse over my career. It's truly ridiculous. Like what are we even doing here?