Pixelmator Pro creating heavy .pxd folders that can't be deleted in Google Drive?

Talk about Pixelmator Pro, share tips & tricks, tutorials, and other resources.
User avatar

2021-12-27 15:54:43

I'm having problems while saving Pixelmator Pro files on my google drive using the google drive desktop client for Mac.

The problem is that the app created multiple .pxd folders for each session (Pixelmator Pro file) that I work on taking up a lot of space. For example, if the session is 180mb, the originating files to that session end up being 3GB.

That wouldn't be a problem if I could just erase the folders, but MacOS won't let me do it even though I made sure the files weren't locked or I had the right permission which I do. This is the message I get:

The operation can’t be completed because some items had to be skipped. For each item, choose File > Get Info, make sure “Locked” is deselected, and then check the Sharing & Permissions section. When you are sure the items are unlocked and not designated as Read Only or No Access, try again.

And won't let me do anything, I also made sure I deactivated the option Preserve Nondestructive Edits under Preference>Extensions, but it still didn't fix anything.

Would someone please help me asap? I'm trying to use Pixelmator Pro instead of the Affinity suite for actual professional work but details like this would refrain me from doing it.

Attached you can see pictures of how many folders the app ends up creating and the error message I get when trying to erase those files.

Image Image
User avatar

2021-12-31 02:31:38

Same. This is a huge problem. What is the root cause? Mac OS Monterey, Pixelmator or Google Drive?
User avatar

2022-01-04 12:20:41

I'm leaning towards a Google Drive syncing issue of some sort (?). I couldn't reproduce anything like that using Pixelmator Pro 2.3.4, running on macOS 12.1. On my end, temporary files do appear when performing a save but disappear momentarily. Reinold, James1995abc have you guys had a chance to get in touch with Google support about this? Perhaps they could share some insights into what could be happening here.
User avatar

2022-04-13 15:42:46

Same problem here. It's pretty annoying!
User avatar

2022-04-14 15:01:42

Hi Leon, this issue should no longer occur since the 2.4 update as the default PXD file type was changed from package files (native macOS file type that causes compatibility issues with some third party cloud storage providers, including Google Drive) to binary files (much more your traditional file type that gets along with cloud services just fine). The only thing you need to do aside from downloading the update is re-save your old PXD files via File > Save As... . They will be saved as binary files and this issue should be gone!
User avatar

2022-04-14 18:06:46

Using Pixelmator Pro 2.4.1, MacOS Monterey 12.2.1, PXD files are still storing in an odd format in Google Drive.
They no longer create a separate folder, but create a Compressed Archive folder within the desired Google Drive folder containing:
- A "Data" folder with three files with long hex names
- A "Quick Look" folder with 2 small .TIFF files
- A "Metadata.info" file
None of these files are accessible by clicking on them in Google Drive, but they're intact when downloaded and opened in Pixelmator Pro.
Bill