Storyline file size

Good Afternoon, Benny.

I see two similar forum threads here and here.  In summary, there are a few points to be gathered:

• Publishing the file seems to improve the efficiency of the file size.
• Working from a network drive or flash drive may worsen the storage efficiency.
• The "Save As" function has been known to help at times.
• There is no "Optimize" or "Compact" function within Storyline to assist with this.
• The impact of file size seems to be minimal except in cases of needing to email a file, in which case tools such as Dropbox or YouSendIt will help.

Please let us know if you have any other questions or concerns.  Thanks!

I've reviewed the summary above, as well as the 2 other threads that Justin linked to.

• Yes, the humongous .story file is on my hard drive (not a network or thumb drive).
• Yes, I tried Save As -- multiple times.
• Yes, I tried both Save and Save As after publishing the course -- to both LMS and to Web.
• Yes, I tried importing the slides from my original course into a new course.

NO. None of those worked to reduce the size of the .story file.

Even if any of those steps could consistently reduce the size, Articulate REALLY needs to develop an "optimize/compact size" function. One shouldn't have to jump through hoops for something this basic.

I appreciate the offer, Justin, but I've already spent way too much time on this issue. I don't have the time to try to upload a 299MB file (bloated from swapping videos). I have submitted this as a feature request -- though, based on previous threads, this really should already be a priority for the development team.

Hello,

we have the same issue. We observed that the project files size always increase and never decrease, even changing the theme or removing some content.

I was just curious to see what's in a .story file and I unzipped it.

I discovered that in my project file, with just 8 slides, there are stored 3449 (!) XML file in the slideLayouts folder, and 576 XML files in the slideMasters folder.

The media folder, that's supposed to be the largest one, is the smallest and contains just what's supposed to be there.

I think Storyline 2 needs a sort of autoclean feature in order to remove all the unused and unreferenced stuff inside the project file.

Hi Justin,

You'll see that this discussion dates back some time, and the majority of folks were able to resolve issues with the bloated size by doing a Save as and removing other unnecessary items such as unused slide masters or screen recordings.

If you have an example where the file size is continually increasing in size no matter what you do, I'd love to have our team take a look at it. Can you share that with our Support Engineers here? 

Thank you Justin

Good Afternoon, Judy.

Although it sounds like you've tried most of the techniques we would attempt in order to reduce the size of a bloated .story project file, please feel free to send us a copy of your file so that we can have a closer look.  ...and the more voices that request a feature, the better, so do give us your input there as well.

Please let us know if you need anything else, and have a great day!

Hello,

I've done all the steps that were suggested. I had to build a second course that was based on the first. The first is about 4.5MB. The second is shorter and involved me deleting screens from the first and it's 10.1 MB. I need to be able to send the files via email as firewalls won't allow Dropbox or anything similar. My guess is that SL is keeping all the items on the clipboad or that have been deleted. Is there a way to purge? I have SL 2.

Natasha,

if you have tried all the above suggestions, could you send the file to use for a closer look? You can attach it here using the add attachment button.

Hello Natasha,

Adding an attachment via email will not show the file here. If you need to share it privately, you can send it here.