Pixelmator Pro automatically saving when I make edits, Stop It!

Is something not working like it should? Let us know.
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2018-03-14 17:00:57

I'm very frustrated.

Whenever I open a document and make a change then export a png or jpg of it, I usually don't want to save the changes I made. I'm just exporting a different size for web from a print version.

PP is automatically saving the file and I'm losing all my work.

Please make it stop doing this. No other application acts this way.

Your program is useless to me if it's going to destroy all my work every time I make an edit that I don't want to keep.

Thank you for your prompt attention.
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2018-03-14 18:27:38

No other application acts this way.
This is apple's recommended way of working for any application that saves to the cloud. Pretty much everything written by apple works this way and most apps that make an effort to work well in the apple ecosystem are, or are about to, use autosaves and transparent saves at exit. Versions, autosaves and time machine can be pretty useful (and speaking of time machine, have you tried using it to get your full res files back?)

All that said, exporting at a resolution different to the one you are working at seems reasonable to me. So much so that I've requested the functionality here: http://www.pixelmator.com/community/vie ... 15&t=15509. The replies indicate that a resize on export is on Pixelmator Pro's roadmap.

In the mean time, you can duplicate an image on load File > Duplicate and you will be prompted Save or Delete the copy when you close (and, if you forget to do it when you open a file, you can revert it before you close it using File > Revert To...). Or you can export at full res then resize the exported image. I'm looking forward to having the functionality to resize at export, though.

(edit) I just remembered. There is an option in Preferences... to import or not import images at load. I'm not sure if disabling it will create the functionality you want but it's worth a look. It says it disables autosaves and versions, so it might do.
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2018-03-14 18:31:01

Thanks.

I'm sure the original file is backed up through Time Machine, so I'll be able to recover it.

I'll switch up my workflow, but dang, that's unwieldy.

I hope they can sort this out. I really want to like Pixelmator Pro.
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2018-03-14 18:37:38

by st3f 2018-03-14 18:28:46 (edit) I just remembered. There is an option in to import or not import images at load. I'm not sure if disabling it will create the functionality you want but it's worth a look. It says it disables autosaves and versions, so it might do.
I'll have to see if "versions" is the same as "history" because I don't want to lose undos.

I was able to use "versions"/Time Machine to recover the original files. Whew.

Different workflow I guess, not a bug.

Thanks again for your help.
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2018-03-14 18:43:49

I was able to use "versions"/Time Machine to recover the original files. Whew.
Glad to hear it. Losing work is a real pain.
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2018-03-15 11:49:26

Stef explained everything pretty much perfectly, but one thing I think he missed is that there's an option in System Preferences that controls this behavior in Pixelmator Pro (and the original Pixelmator, incidentally, and pretty much all Apple-made apps). You can find it in the General category — 'Ask to keep changes when closing documents'.

Also, to switch to an earlier version of your document, you don't need to have Time Machine, versioning works automatically whether you save to iCloud or a local folder on your Mac, so File > Revert To > Browse All Versions should always let you revert to an earlier version of your file.
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2018-03-15 15:04:34

Very much appreciate your help.

And I apologize for being in a bit of a panic.

I found the Revert To: Browse All Versions, and that's great. It's a whole new workflow that I'm not used to in a Pro app. (I use Logic Pro X a lot and just looking at it funny causes the app to ask if I want to save changes before closing.) It's not a bad thing, just not something I'm used to doing. I checked how Apple Pages works and it's the exact same thing as you're describing. I just never ran into it because when I export a pdf, I'm not making a change that's only related to the pdf and then I want immediately reverted.

I guess I just do a lot of stuff in image editing apps where I make a size change (I do this probably more than any other thing) and export out a copy to use on the web or in print. I'm used to using Affinity Designer where they have a whole special feature for doing this kind of exporting. It's super helpful. I'm not saying you should copy them, but it's a really common workflow and I'd love to see Pixelmator Pro's way of handling it.

Because you folks write beautiful apps and I really enjoy using them.

So thanks and sorry for the panic and best of luck with Pixelmator Pro.
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2018-03-16 09:03:50

No worries, thinking you've lost work is a stressful situation to say the least so the panic is totally justified. ;)
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2021-09-25 20:24:44

I really really really detest this workflow, I was exporting low-resolution assets and because Pixelmator Pro doesn't have any analog to smart layers, I closed out the App and accidentally killed several high resolution sources.

Because it was in an interval between time machine backups and whatever restore captures, I lost several high resolution assets. There isn't even a save a version to protect your state or a history save like in Photoshop or some sort of analog to changes / commits.

If you're working with finished assets you're always playing a game of "DID I UNDO THIS? WHAT DID I DO LAST" It's absurd as image assets aren't EDLs in FCPX. Logic doesn't work this way. Ableton doesn't work this way. Photoshop doesn't work this way. Only Sketch and Pixelmator, but unlike Pixelmator, Sketch doesn't do destructive edits as it's vector.

I would very much prefer an option to enable manual saving.
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2021-09-27 09:31:15

by Bourbonic 2021-09-25 17:24:44 I really really really detest this workflow, I was exporting low-resolution assets and because Pixelmator Pro doesn't have any analog to smart layers, I closed out the App and accidentally killed several high resolution sources.

Because it was in an interval between time machine backups and whatever restore captures, I lost several high resolution assets. There isn't even a save a version to protect your state or a history save like in Photoshop or some sort of analog to changes / commits.

If you're working with finished assets you're always playing a game of "DID I UNDO THIS? WHAT DID I DO LAST" It's absurd as image assets aren't EDLs in FCPX. Logic doesn't work this way. Ableton doesn't work this way. Photoshop doesn't work this way. Only Sketch and Pixelmator, but unlike Pixelmator, Sketch doesn't do destructive edits as it's vector.

I would very much prefer an option to enable manual saving.
Hi, Bourbonic. It's a fairly old thread you've come across here and we did a few things to improve this behavior since. In particular, we've created a Terminal flag that lets you turn off Auto Saving (and versions) for Pixelmator Pro documents. You can find it below:

defaults write com.pixelmatorteam.pixelmator.x ApplePersistence -bool no

In case you need to turn on Auto Save again, just use -bool yes at the end instead.

Hope that helps!