Yes, a Scratch Team member is asking a question about Scratch. I'd like to know if some of you know what's going on here.

So we all know and love the 50 MB project size limit when it comes to posting projects on the website. I've been working on this project on the online editor, and after hearing of someone's project becoming corrupted, I decided to play it safe and download a copy of my project onto my device.

However, when I downloaded it, I was shocked to learn that my device says that the project had a file size of 95 MB! That's not good — it made me worried that I wouldn't be able to share this project eventually. However, I was skeptical — surely if I hit any sort of project size, the online editor would tell me that, right?

So, I decided to run a test. I made a copy of the project and deleted almost all the assets except for some large sound files. Re-downloading that new project came up at about 78 MB. I then uploaded it to my test account, and after 30 seconds, it managed to save. So, I clicked the Share button, and … it shared the project.

Can someone please explain what is going on here? If the file size limit was truly 50 MB, I certainly would not expect to have shared a project that was 78 MB. Is it true that the online editor will prevent me from adding more assets if I go above the project size limit, and if it never does, I'll be able to share the project? Is there something else I'm missing here?

I don't really know… maybe it's 95 MB because when it was downloaded it doesn't compact the data like Scratch would automatically do when you share a project? I'm not even sure if Scratch automatically compacts data of projects when they're shared… Sorry I couldn't be much of a help.

I’m not really sure what the error was but I think it might have to depend on the coding, how many sprites there are etc.

From what I've heard, Scratch 3 files have some sort of compression system that compresses all of the assets - the costumes, audio and I think scripts as well are compressed. If the data you have is compressable enough, then you could upload a project that's significantly over the 50 MB project size limit onto Scratch's servers, while the compressed version is still under 50 MB

CatsUnited wrote:

From what I've heard, Scratch 3 files have some sort of compression system that compresses all of the assets - the costumes, audio and I think scripts as well are compressed. If the data you have is compressable enough, then you could upload a project that's significantly over the 50 MB project size limit onto Scratch's servers, while the compressed version is still under 50 MB

Yes! My theory is right! (I think) I feel so helpful!!!

xXRedTheCoderXx wrote:

CatsUnited wrote:

From what I've heard, Scratch 3 files have some sort of compression system that compresses all of the assets - the costumes, audio and I think scripts as well are compressed. If the data you have is compressable enough, then you could upload a project that's significantly over the 50 MB project size limit onto Scratch's servers, while the compressed version is still under 50 MB

Yes! My theory is right! (I think) I feel so helpful!!!

You should feel helpful if you helped a member of the Scratch Team, they need help sometimes but not often do you get to opportunity to help them.
Back to the question….
I have no idea. Sorry. Maybe it glitched and accepted a 78 MB project when it shouldn't have (not likely, it's just that it's all I came up with) and if you unshared it then shared it again it wouldn't accept it.

For those curious, my question has been answered:

thisandagain* wrote:

There is a 10MB limit for each asset (sound, image, etc) and a much larger limit for the size of the project itself. In effect that means that you can have *very large* projects in Scratch.

A project limit itself (the code, variables, lists, etc) is still 50MB, but that project limit does not include the size of the assets (sounds, images, etc).

I'll be closing this topic as it is resolved.