Project File Size

In Scratch 3.0, projects on the Scratch website can only be shared if each individual asset does not exceed 10 MB and the project JSON does not exceed 5 MB. If a message appears saying that the project is too large, it may be helpful to try to compress or remove long sounds, like music. Also, if the project is in Scratch 1.4 or Scratch 2.0, the project can be opened in Scratch 3.0 and uploaded from there. When Scratch 3.0 was released, many users thought that the project size limit was reduced to 20 MB, using the same project size measure method as Scratch 2.0. Later on, there have been conflicting reports of whether projects are limited to 50 MB, but former Scratch Team member Za-Chary has confirmed that one can make projects larger than 50MB.

The "Project could not save" alert, which can appear if a project is too large

Scratch 3.0

In comparison with Scratch 2.0, Scratch 3.0 uses a different method of measuring project size, allowing Scratchers to make projects larger than the old project size limit (50 MB). In Scratch 3.0, all assets must be under 10 MB, and the project JSON must be under 5 MB. There is no explicit limit on project file size, but with the (otherwise) smallest possible project containing as many assets as possible, the largest a project can be while remaining within the explicit limits is 70,847 assets (708 GB, or 660 GiB).

Scratch 2.0

This article or section documents something not included in the current version of Scratch (3.0). It is only useful from a historical perspective.

“	We used to be stuck with the 10 megabyte limit due to limitations in Java. We hope to be able to extend this limit in the next version of Scratch - but server space costs $! Unlimited is too big, 10 MB is too little.	”
– Lightnin, a former Scratch Team member

The Scratch 2.0 File Format uses a more efficient storage system than the 1.4 file format, so projects took up less space than before.^{[citation needed]} The project size limit was five times larger than Scratch 1.4's limit, resulting in 50 MB, though all assets were limited to 10 MB each, which was retained in Scratch 3.0. Unlike 3.0, Scratch 2.0 didn't allow making projects larger than 50 MB overall.

How to tell when a Scratch 1.x project is too big

This article or section documents something not included in the current version of Scratch (3.0). It is only useful from a historical perspective.

In Scratch 1.x, all assets together were limited to 10 MB. If one is offline, then they will know when they try to upload a project to the Scratch Website; Scratch will display this error message when a file is too big to upload:

How to tell when a Scratch 2.0 project is too big

This article or section documents something not included in the current version of Scratch (3.0). It is only useful from a historical perspective.

If one is offline, then the user will know when they try to upload their project to the Scratch Website; Scratch will display this generic error message when the file is too big to upload:

If the user is on the website, though, they'll know when their project is too large when they cannot add any more costumes, sounds, backdrops, or anything to it.

Reducing Project Size

Main article: Project Compression

The best way to reduce the size of a project is to compress the sounds and images. Below are some tips:

• Delete all unused sprites and scripts
• Delete unused variables and lists
• Use stamping and cloning instead of multiple sprites when possible
• Delete all unused sound files, as they take up a lot of space
• Use custom blocks to reduce script sizes
• Use vector graphics instead of bitmap graphics (especially for simple costumes like circles and boxes)

Note:

Converting a bitmap costume to the vector format does not reduce its size.

• Use lower quality images and sounds with lower file sizes

See Also

• Project Sharing
• Project Could Not Save