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This Twitter post sparked me to ask the question:

totally! RT @damienguard: Dear UI designers everywhere. Stop using floppy disk icons for save. Too many people have no idea what it is now.

Floppy Disk Save Icon

So, is the floppy disk icon obsolete? Should it be replaced with something more modern and if so what?

Shreyas Tripathy
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rick schott
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    You might say that save buttons themselves are dead. Why not automatic saving with undo? Microsoft OneNote for example. Save buttons should be placebic in the same way that door close buttons in elevators and street crossing buttons are. – justin.m.chase Jan 12 '11 at 22:12
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    Just out of trivia (and because it intrigues me), those things must be a local specific because over here - street crossing buttons need a push to initiate a cycle (though on really crowded streets they're sometimes lit and pressed automatically). Also, I've never seen an elevator with a close button, not even the ones from ~1920 in town has one, but perhaps I'm simply too young or there's a big difference in regulations ^^ (most have a "hold door" button though to let more people in) – Oskar Duveborn Jan 23 '11 at 18:26
  • eclipse is using floppy disk for save function. – 0101 Jan 30 '11 at 20:14
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    @Oskar (Los Angeles, CA here...) There are definitely some intersections where you have to press the button otherwise you will never get a walk signal but for many of them, it's going to change anyway whether you press it or not, and the button doesn't really do anything. – Tyler May 26 '11 at 18:10
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    +1 Apple is doing exactly this in its latest release, Lion. – Matt Rockwell Aug 03 '11 at 14:31
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    http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1019573 – Robert Harvey Jan 12 '12 at 20:09
  • Yes: http://superuser.com/questions/231273/what-are-the-windows-a-and-b-drives-used-for – Lie Ryan Jan 27 '11 at 01:13
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    No. The floppy disk itself is dead, but not the floppy disk icon representing save. – awe Oct 07 '11 at 13:24
  • Here's a nice collection of "dead" icons, including the floppy disk. http://www.hanselman.com/blog/TheFloppyDiskMeansSaveAnd14OtherOldPeopleIconsThatDontMakeSenseAnymore.aspx – Patrick McElhaney May 11 '12 at 17:55
  • if implementing a save function, what to put on that place? – kokbira Jun 21 '12 at 14:52
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    Many, perhaps most, lifts (aka elevators) in the UK have close buttons. They close the door immediately, assuming no one is standing in the way, so you don't have to wait the usual 30+ seconds for the door to close automatically. If someone hits the outside button whilst they are closing, they usually then open again. – Paul J. Lewis Oct 05 '12 at 12:08
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    When altering business data, please keep save an explicit action. Auto-backup, sure, but only auto-save robs the user of a very important action: cancelling. – koenmetsu Oct 22 '12 at 07:09
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    It's a skeuomorph, like the click-whirr noise of a digital camera. – TRiG Nov 18 '12 at 07:51
  • Although many young people do not know the metaphor, they understand its meaning of the icon save. Clipboard and envelope icons in my opinion are also quite obsolete. I found this very interesting link on the topic:http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/05/13/0310219/icons-that-dont-make-sense-anymore – RitaS. Aug 19 '13 at 12:47
  • Libre office uses icon of drawer or filling cabinet, whatever it is, with arrow going in. Think, that it is perfect. – Dee Apr 04 '13 at 15:11
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    I know this question is fairly old, but I just had to comment. The fact that floppy disks are no longer used only solidifies the icons place. The disk icon means one thing and one thing only: Save. Not too long ago you could've used a CD since it was the next major (RIP Zip disks!) upgrade in storage media, but then people would wonder: Am I saving or burning to a CD? Now, it's flash drives, but people would wonder the same thing: Am I saving to my computer or saving to my flash drive? Since floppy disk drives rarely exist anymore, end-users know exactly what they're getting. – Dryden Long Nov 20 '13 at 20:18
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    exactly the same as the pencil icon to edit or the page icon for a file: not obsolete but, as the accepted answer states, idiomatic – Wim Ombelets Jan 03 '14 at 15:28
  • Is the floppy icon still the prevailing save icon in 2015? – Eric Jul 15 '15 at 22:02
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    Railroad signs still depict steam trains. – Petruza Oct 15 '15 at 21:58
  • I think some might even argue that the 'save' functionality is going to be obsolete because of the popularity of web applications compared to desktop applications. – Michael Lai Mar 13 '16 at 00:19
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    Most printers don't look like that anymore also. But people still would associate that image with a printer as that is the image that is commonly used for a printer. A triangle does not look like caution but it has been associated with caution by use. – paparazzo Jul 28 '16 at 16:53
  • "Saving" was an unnatural action (real-world things are not ephemeral) and hopefully it will not be needed as a concept much longer (computer data could be made not ephemeral). It is hard to come up with a natural association for something that never existed before technology created it. This will be an ongoing issue. –  Jan 31 '17 at 19:10
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    I am having the same dilemma. Despite I agree that iconography is symbolic and, the "save" floppy disk still means "save", for many the reality is that we live more and more on a ubiquitous society based on the web and web applications. Users in my opinion are starting to expect just the word "Save" as a button instead of a floppy disk. Is there any biography and research on this? – Estela Gaspar Nov 24 '20 at 14:33

26 Answers26

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The floppy disk icon is an idiom, not a metaphor. It doesn't matter that we're no longer writing files on 1.44MB 3.5" disks. It doesn't matter that many users don't even know what a floppy disk is. What matters is that users associate the icon with saving.

Patrick McElhaney
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    Couldn't have put it better myself. – ChrisF Jan 12 '11 at 20:56
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    Metaphors are understood. Idioms are learned. Idioms must be taught. – Vincent Robert Jan 13 '11 at 10:04
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    Great point - for instance, I have very little experience with physical folders, yet folder icons are ubiquitous. – Kristian J. Jan 13 '11 at 13:25
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    So you're saying it's an idiom and must be learnt. But floppy disk icons between different apps look quite different (compare Office, Windows Phone 7 and Nintendo DS games like Scribblenaughts that all use one) so that learned experience is not easily reused.

    In my own experience with new users they didn't recognize this icon and they don't know what it is. Somebody tells them to click it or they experiment and click it and do it next time.

    I don't feel that is good user interface design at all hence my original Twitter post.

     – DamienG Jan 13 '11 at 16:05
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    @DamienG - What experience is that? I don't think I've seen anyone fail to understand what that icon means. As for the different look, they aren't THAT different. They are all similar enough that one can easily confer meaning from one to the next. Even a VERY below average intelligence knows a phone when they see it, even though different phones look nothing alike. – Charles Boyung Jan 14 '11 at 13:53
  • Kids mostly. Idioms, as was said above, need to be taught or learnt. Often that's okay, people can play with the functions and figure out what the icons do but that's not acceptable when the action is whether their data gets kept or lost. – DamienG Jan 15 '11 at 17:31
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    I agree, i think it's like the shutter sound of digital cameras. Or "horse power" as a physical unit. – LennyUserExperience Jan 18 '11 at 10:00
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    Unless there's a more appropriate icon that is easier to learn or more intuitive, the floppy disk icon is still relevant. The people who are unable to recognize a floppy disk icon just because it's a different size/color or illustration style are going to have just as hard a time with any other save icon. That's why you add tooltips and text labels to important functionality. – Lèse majesté Jan 26 '11 at 13:18
  • @DamienG: You say the icon look different in different apps, but you list examples from different platforms. When designers choose icons for an application, they are quite consistent choosing icons that reflects the platform it is built on. – awe Feb 09 '11 at 13:19
  • @awe: Thats exactly the problem. Somebody who has never seen the original object is in a poor position to recognize an abstraction let alone two completely different styles. – DamienG Feb 09 '11 at 17:42
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    Having no floppies any more makes them even the better icons. An HDD-Icon could mean there is a distinction, where you like to save your data, and many people, while using hdds, have never seen one. USB-Sticks are to widely used (as modem, wlan, drive, lock, bluetooth, ...). – user unknown Feb 10 '11 at 08:15
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    When I was in school, the class was told to "Click on the little picture of the television to save". And that was when floppy disks were still well known and used! – TRiG Aug 04 '11 at 12:10
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    @Lenny222. It's a skeuomorph! – TRiG Aug 04 '11 at 12:13
  • @NickChammas Thanks. I've replaced the link with another, better one. Also, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63Y5XjlO4vk – Patrick McElhaney Apr 20 '12 at 15:28
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    We don't need to stick with dead technology, it can lead to dead idioms. Libre office and linux gnome already learned the lesson and replaced it by something else. "Put file to the folder" icon would be good for any media in the past or in the future. Who knows how we replace USB stick or HDD in the future,... – Dee Apr 04 '13 at 15:17
  • @TRiG - I cannot see – jlarson Oct 02 '13 at 22:33
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    Don't know if someone already linked to this comic, which basically proves that it doesn't matter if a younger generation don't understand the origin of this symbol anymore as long as they know what it does. – David Ongaro May 27 '15 at 18:26
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    I feel like being a troll, using 5.25" floppy drives as the save icon in my next prototype. Anyone born after 1985 will be clueless! Besides that, check out this story about the history of the cmd key on macs. Shows how it started out becoming an idiom and then eventually Susan Kare discovered its true origin again: http://www.tested.com/tech/mac-os/461757-origin-apple-command-icon/ – zkwsk Feb 18 '16 at 16:05
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    @funkylaundry Great story. Thanks! It's funny how kids born after 1167 have no idea what a castle key is. – Patrick McElhaney Feb 18 '16 at 20:48
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This question gets brought up every so often. I've found two separate threads (several years apart) on the IxDA list:

http://www.ixda.org/node/19443

http://www.ixda.org/node/23688

I thought it was discussed on UXExchange as well, but I couldn't find it.

In my opinion (and it seems to be the general consensus), the icon is ubiquitous with saving. Changing it would cause more problems than it would solve. Think of it this way - can YOU think of anything to replace it with that would be more universally understood? There really isn't anything.

The same thing holds true for the "phone" icons used on cell phones and even Skype, or (eventually) the envelope icon for email. When was the last time you saw a phone that actually looked like the old, standard handset that is almost always used as the phone icon? I doubt most kids would even know what that icon was if it wasn't the button to talk on their cell phones. Yet, it is still widely known and probably will not be going away.

Charles Boyung
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    YES! Many icons represented how things looked like in the old days, and the looks of things (generally) were more consistent before. Now all things have modern designs, and does not necessary have a uniform look. So symbolic icons are better off kept the same as they have been commonly accepted to represent. Although newer generations does not know what a floppy disk is, they DO know that the symbol means "Save"! – awe Jan 26 '11 at 13:19
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    Ask a child to draw a train? What do you think you will get? A Class 42, a Deltic? No. They will draw a steamie - just about every time. It is the archetype of its class. The same goes for icons. – Paul J. Lewis Oct 05 '12 at 12:16
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    Similarly, even today the silhouette of a steam locomotive is often used to indicate a railway crossing, or a train station, etc. It is instantly recognizable even if it's obsolete since at least a half century: if you put there a modern locomotive, people would wonder whether it's a bus, a train, a tram, or something else. – vsz Feb 21 '13 at 22:34
  • For email, the @ symbol is a viable alternative. – Dan Henderson Feb 17 '16 at 19:55
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    "When was the last time you saw a phone that actually looked like the old, standard handset that is almost always used as the phone icon?" - while many people might not have such a phone at home, workplaces frequently feature office phones (random example) whose earpiece does match that appearance. – O. R. Mapper Aug 25 '16 at 09:49
  • @vsz: At least, trains can be depicted in such a way to barely allow for any mixing up with buses. – O. R. Mapper Aug 25 '16 at 09:50
  • That is why Ferrari uses a Horse as their icon. –  Jan 31 '17 at 18:56
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And, I suppose, a metal chain is intrinsically linked with hyperlinks, paper envelopes are required to send e-mails, and your browser's home page is an actual house?

Look past the pedantically literal and you'll see value in a metaphor that has survived, near-unchanged, for decades with no confusion and no ambiguity. Why change it now?!

Next you'll be proposing we don't even call it "save" any more; with auto-save, and auto-backups, what are we saving our data from, exactly?

Lightness Races in Orbit
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  • Everything will be "commit" in the future. =b – Anonsage Mar 22 '15 at 03:25
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    You are "saving" a particular revision from being lost in the timeline of character-by-character editing, and you are "saving" yourself from embarrassment when other users can see private information in a document's edit history. – Damian Yerrick Jun 06 '15 at 14:02
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    I hate this answer. All the more so because it's correct. +1, sigh. – Jared Smith Feb 20 '18 at 13:32
  • @JaredSmith: lol :P – Lightness Races in Orbit Feb 20 '18 at 13:49
  • Hmm, the 3 examples you give are irrelevant: physical chains, paper envelopes and houses are still in use and widely recognised. Floppy disks are not.

    It seems quite bold to assert that the floppy icon has caused "no confusion and no ambiguity"! Still, you are right that it shouldn't be changed unless we can come up with something better. I have suggested using a checkmark icon as a more intuitive and future-proof solution.

     – Bennett McElwee Feb 11 '19 at 22:02
  • @BennettMcElwee I'll grant you that those examples relate to physical objects that still exist. Still, the key point of an icon is its associations, and the associations there are just as stale as that of a floppy disk. I'll try to think of some better examples though because you're not wrong. TBF there are some excellent suggestions in the comments under the question (what printers used to look like, railroad signs, pencils, triangles for caution, radio buttons, clipboards, address books, the voicemail icon, folders, handset phones... I mean honestly take your pick) – Lightness Races in Orbit Feb 11 '19 at 23:57
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    @BennettMcElwee A box or action labelled with a checkmark indicates "doneness" as you've said yourself, but saving a document doesn't close it (you keep working on it), so that doesn't work. – Lightness Races in Orbit Feb 11 '19 at 23:58
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This is also discussed on Graphic Design where there are some good (and some bad) proposals for alternative save icons:

New generation of Save icon that is not a “disk”?

Many icons represented how things looked like in the old days, and the looks of things (generally) were more consistent before. Now all things have modern designs, and does not necessary have a uniform look. So symbolic icons are better off kept the same as they have been commonly accepted to represent. Although newer generations does not know what a floppy disk is, they DO know that the symbol means "Save"!

The folder icon Folder is also commonly used, but it took a while before I realized what it looked like! A reason for this might of course be that in the beginning (when I first experienced it) it was a much simpler version of it: Old style folder
I learned that it was the icon for a directory long before i realized that it looked like an archive folder.

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awe
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    The folder icon already has an established meaning of "Open", since, like, forever. –  Feb 22 '16 at 02:48
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    The fun part is that such archive folders are pretty much absent in most of the world. I never saw even a photo of one. – polkovnikov.ph Feb 18 '19 at 21:49
  • Note the discussion on the Graphic Design site has been locked, so it's probably not a good reference as it doesn't accept new answers or edits. – Flimm Mar 11 '22 at 08:58
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The GNOME desktop on Linux/Unix moved away from the floppy disk icon quite a while ago, and nobody seemed to mind... you can see what they use instead in this screenshot from 2008 (on the "Apri" and "Salva" icons):
Screenshot, showing a green arrow pointing down into a representation of an IDE hard-drive as the idiom for 'Save'

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calum_b
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    Same icon that ammoQ provided as an option on Jan. 18 - To me, it looks like a download icon, not a save icon. – Charles Boyung Feb 01 '11 at 15:53
  • Agreed, just thought it would be interesting to back up with an example where it has been universally changed in a widely-deployed desktop environment. – calum_b Feb 02 '11 at 17:36
  • You're seriously using GNOME as an example of a widely-deployed desktop environment? Is that even the most widely used environment among Linux users (which are less than 5% of users to begin with)? I thought KDE was used far more as a desktop than GNOME. – Charles Boyung Feb 03 '11 at 01:45
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    To me, the icon looks like a clock radio with a green arrow indicating where to click the snooze button or something. Even though it's an alternative to the floppy disc, it's not a good alternative! – awe Feb 09 '11 at 13:28
  • GNOME is used on tens of thousands of desktops worldwide (possibly hundreds of thousands -- hard to garner an accurate figure), including financial and local governmental deployments in Germany, Spain, Ireland, Scandinavia and Brazil, off the top of my head. So while of course it doesn't enjoy the same order of magnitude of installations as Windows or even OS X, I'd certainly consider it to be widely-deployed. – calum_b Feb 16 '11 at 00:20
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    @Calum - the app that I had to work on at my first job was deployed to tens of thousands of users too - does that mean it is widely-deployed and we should be using it as a baseline of how to design interfaces? No, I don't think so. – Charles Boyung Apr 22 '11 at 19:41
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    @Charles Gnome is used by default by the top 3 Linux distributions: Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Fedora. That said, by your logic one cannot use Mac stuff as examples given that Apple controls around 10% of the desktop market :) – Atanasio Segovia Jan 12 '12 at 23:38
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    I think the reason it works on this environment is because it explicitly says "Save" next to the icon. – Jaime Garcia Mar 10 '12 at 00:35
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    @ferrarifan: Good point. The icon itself is not saying it clearly, so it needs a text to specify what it does. – awe Jun 19 '12 at 08:14
  • I feel like this icon has the same problem as the floppy disk icon had: It is too concrete. My Laptop has an SSD without the characteristic black button with metallic top casing this icon is based upon. Next-Gen Laptops will probably have mSATA SSDs without any casing. Users of tablets/convertibles/etc. might never even see the internals of their devices. – Bengt Jun 03 '13 at 10:55
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    The downward arrow might be associated with downloading. What if the document is saved to the cloud, so effectively uploaded? – Bengt Jun 03 '13 at 10:59
  • @charles-boyung If the downward arrow seems to imply "download" to some, then how about placing the hard disk at the top of the image, with an upward arrow pointing at it? Road signs have long used the metaphor "up = to a distant location", implying that the bottom margin is "here", and the terms UPload/DOWNload do the same. – user149408 Feb 11 '15 at 16:34
  • Sure or just use the floppy disk icon which is instantly recognisable to everyone. – Lightness Races in Orbit Sep 11 '15 at 14:59
  • @BoundaryImposition if all we need is 'recognizable', it would be just as well for everyone to learn Chinese writing (they could keep their spoken language). Those symbols have been the same for thousands of years. And if you need something new, just combine a few of the existing ones. Icons, Begone! –  May 31 '17 at 14:05
  • @nocomprende: What a load of nonsense. Recognisable to your audience. The floppy disk icon is already recognisable to the entire computer-using audience; Chinese symbols are not. – Lightness Races in Orbit May 31 '17 at 14:10
  • @BoundaryImposition current icons are recognizable today because they were chosen in the past. But we must go on making up more symbols. Why not use ones with no inherent meaning? Why choose pictures that will become obsolete? There is an audience in the future as well as the present. –  May 31 '17 at 14:14
  • I downvoted because this is not evidence that a different icon is clearer, when the icon has the text "Save" next to it. Icons with text have always been shown to be clearer than icons without text, so much so, that it almost doesn't matter what the icon is if it is labelled with text. – Flimm Mar 11 '22 at 08:31
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Because the floppy disk icon is so widely used, it does not really make sense to change it. Specially with something like a hard disk. Why should we replace a well known icon (even the users under 18 associate the floppy disk with saving even if they don't know what it is). Especially using a hard disk, which comes into ages right now, instead. Remember that we move into the cloud era. Arrows pointing down to disk or folders are more known for downloading or importing.

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    Absolutely agree. Away from computing, we still talk about power of a car as horsepower or of a lamp as candlepower, even though few people are familiar with horses and candles as sources of power. – DaveP Mar 04 '13 at 16:30
  • @DaveP perhaps the names of those measures should not have been chosen that way? This is the whole point we are discussing: it doesn't matter what thing you refer to, it will inevitably become obsolete. So, don't refer to a thing, come up with a better symbol, preferably one that has no inherent meaning or association. There is no natural analog for something like 'integral' or 'square root', so we didn't try to find a natural icon for them. We made something up instead. –  May 31 '17 at 14:10
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Just to back some of the previous answers with an excerpt from one of my favorite UX books "The Design of Everyday Things", in chapter 7:

7. When all else fails, standardize.

When something can't be designed without arbitrary mappings and difficulties, there is one last route: standardize. Standardize the actions, outcomes, layout, displays. Make related actions work in the same way. Standardize the system, the problem; create an international standard.

Remember, standardization is essential only when all the necessary information cannot be placed in the world or when natural mappings cannot be exploited.

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Marcos Ciarrocchi
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For what it's worth, here's an article from Boxes and Arrows about a survey of 18- to 25-year-olds regarding exactly this issue.

In summary, the research found that 96% of respondents recognized the floppy disk, and 80% said it represented save. Other icons surveyed included voicemail, link, and search.

For those who don't want to click through, the article concludes:

Ultimately, the most important thing is to have icons that make it clear to as many people as possible what they do in the interface. It’s better to have 80% of users see the floppy disk, dig back into their memories of childhood technology and connect to this image as representing the act of saving, than have 100% of users see a downward facing arrow and wonder what it means.

in_flight
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In the myriad of applications in use today, the floppy is iconic and means one thing.

In a way its like latin in that it cannot be misunderstood, the association merely needs to be learned, like most other icons do anyway.

For those of us that use powerful and complex tools like photoshop or visual studio, think of all of the different icons.

enter image description here

Of these icons, which ones are perfectly intuitive and never required an association to be made?

The floppy is universal, it doesn't need to be replaced.

Andrew Hoffman
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Yes. Although the floppy icon is still understood it's at it's end-of-life. A replacement is required that's more relevant to today's user and today's context. To a user "save" means "save my new work to the file". The file itself can be floppy, hard disk, usb or the cloud). This has bugged me so I just made some quick mockups put below. I like the one on the left the most; makes it feel like "stuff goes into the file".

Samples

Credits: This derivative work is GPL'd, so use/abuse as you wish. I used pulled the green arrow (also GPL'd) from http://www.iconarchive.com/show/snowish-icons-by-saki/Arrow-right-icon.html. If you want the PSD or something, message me.

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    Personally, I interpret the one on the left to mean something along the lines of 'import into document', not 'save document to disk'. – Tharwen Jun 12 '12 at 15:04
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    I understand both icons as “Import into file”. – Nicolas Barbulesco Mar 17 '13 at 11:30
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    Arrows are not a good direction to start going. We have enough trouble with right-to-left vs left-to-right as it is. Up and down are completely mysterious to most computer users. The arrow does not convey meaning, except on a road sign (where you are actually moving). –  May 31 '17 at 14:12
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I use the save to folder and load from folder icons instead (a file folder with arrow going in or out).

Even on my old XT I had a small harddrive which I usually used for saving on.

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The floppy disk icon seems neither dead nor alive, but somewhere in between on its way out. A lot of users won't recognize it as Save, though those with a lot of experience using more traditional apps like MS Office or enterprise-ware will likely be very familiar with it. If in doubt, test with your audience.

Todd Sieling
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Imho Safe is the best fresh idea for new Save icon:

safe

Words "save" and "safe" even sound similar :)

Permalink;

enter image description here

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webvitaly
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    Imo this is too complex - I had mistaken this for a screen projector at first glance. – kontur Mar 04 '13 at 09:15
  • @kontur what is your suggestion for "Save" icon? – webvitaly Mar 04 '13 at 10:09
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    What I suggest or don't suggest as an icon is of no matter to my comment on your answer; I think the safe is hard to recognize and does not neccesairly communicate saving of state. – kontur Mar 04 '13 at 11:27
  • @kontur I added new image of safe. IMHO now it is looks like more than safe ;) – webvitaly Mar 04 '13 at 14:04
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    But a safe would mean encrypting. In computing, safes and locks and keys and codes are already taken to mean access control and encryption. – Nicolas Barbulesco Mar 17 '13 at 11:36
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    Well safe<>save only works in english. I think this is not a good icon, since it represents security against theft. In computer terms this would mean encryption, etc. – Kweamod Mar 24 '15 at 12:44
  • Your large safe graphic would be a good choice for when I connect my laptop to my new 4K TV. – Dan Henderson Feb 17 '16 at 20:00
  • And what happens when, in the future, nobody needs to steal anymore? Therefore, safes become obsolete and the symbol loses all meaning too. – RobbyReindeer Jan 11 '18 at 11:47
  • @nicolasbarbulesco I agree with the encryption on this. My real opinion is that the best option is to keep the floppy disk icon... – awe Feb 25 '19 at 13:07
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Some icons are born as icons (talking about semiotics) cause they were created to be similar to the object/concept represented. But, as time passes, some icons have become symbols (talking about semiotics) because they are used for convention and not anymore for analogy.

The are many other examples:

  • Envelope
  • Hourglass
  • Magnifying glass

enter image description here enter image description here enter image description here

WalterV
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    Agree. Same happens in languages, we use hundreds of expressions and idioms that nowadays should have non sense. However, we've read and listened in certain contexts and we know how to use. IMO every kid after using a computer for a week will know what the diskette icon means, and it will never be forgotten or it will require brain process. – Daniel Perez Feb 08 '22 at 07:42
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I believe we should not stop using floppy icon for save. As its widely accepted and there isnt a alternate design known. The only modification i can think of is introducing the small tooltip text for those who do not understand what floppy or any of the old icons represent.

sushil bharwani
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In my apps I'm using a couple of different icons. Most of my apps persist to a database, so I use a "transitional" icon, with the floppy in front of a set of "database disks" somewhat like this:

http://www.artistsvalley.com/images/icons/Database%20Application%20Icons/Database%20Save/256x256/Database%20Save.jpg

Cylinders are known from flow-chart land as data stores, but with flow-charting being a relatively technical thing in the first place, this isn't ideal as an intuitive icon either. Someone might think this looks like a water cooler tank.

For another app, I just use a green checkmark, and the command is to "Commit Changes" instead of "Save". Everything is just data in the DB, no files, and icons for DBs as we discussed are not very intuitive.

In all cases in my apps, the icon does not stand alone; there's always text for the command being performed, such as "Save", "Commit Changes", "Refresh/Revert", etc, even in toolbars. The icon's just a focusing point for mouse clicks, because people are used to the idea that small pictures do something when you click them, while text is trickier to indicate as "active" (and the main things we think of, underlined blue links, have a navigational context; they take you somewhere else).

On the topic of "real-time persistence", we have an environment (a flavor of the Great Plains accounting package) that uses this system; change a field value and it goes to the data store as soon as you tab or mouse out. Our users hate it. Hate it. They not only want to choose when to save their changes, they want a confirmation dialog that it happened successfully.

KeithS
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    I think a green checkmark is closest to the best general alternative to the floppy icon. – awe Aug 19 '13 at 12:00
  • @Urbycoz ... as I stated in my answer in the very next paragraph after the image. – KeithS Aug 27 '14 at 15:28
  • But why does the oil-drum looking thing mean "database"? I addressed this in another question. It is question-begging to replace one little-known thing with another. The issue is that "save" does not correspond with anything in the real world, because real-world things are not ephemeral. If I make a statue, I don't have to push a button to keep it from vanishing. –  Jan 31 '17 at 19:04
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There are a lot of statements about the Save icon being obsolete, but I don't see any proof of that. In fact, a couple of 15 year olds on this post have stated that they know what a floppy disc is.

We just completed some user testing for a web application. One of the utility icons is an icon that allows you to save a report in a PDF format to your computer. We used a "download" icon. You know, the horizontal tray with the arrow pointing down?

More than one participant said that the download icon was confusing, and specifically suggested that the standard "floppy disk" icon be used to indicate saving. Using the download icon turned out to be confusing.

As others have said, the save disc icon is widely known for saving. Changing that would potentially cause more problems than keeping it as is.

Dmacatude
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  • But you aren't saving, you're downloading the fact that your user thought he was saving only evidences that he was already confused. – VoronoiPotato Jan 15 '14 at 20:13
  • In the case of our study, the download icon was more ambiguous and therefore more confusing to users. The page was read-only lab results with a utility bar with print/download (save to local machine), email and delete icons. Since it was read-only, it's not like the user would be confused about what the save icon would mean since nothing on the screen is editable. I guess my question is, is there really a difference between "download" and "save" to the end user if nothing on the screen can be edited, and if the save function is a utility icon and not a "Save" button? – Dmacatude Jan 20 '14 at 17:46
  • Meh I'm not convinced. It sounds like the operation was actually "Save As", for which no idiomatic icon exists as far as I can tell. Download would then be the next best thing, I'd have thought. It's a shame your users didn't respond well to it; I'm fairly sure that a wider sample (useless to you as they wouldn't have been your actual users, but...!) would have produced different results. – Lightness Races in Orbit Mar 22 '15 at 03:35
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This topic is not worth debating I guess, this generation doesn't even know what floppy disc is or ever was... they never associate the save icon with floppy dics...but everyone knows that its' THE SAVE icon, no matter if something is written or not, with or without tooltip, everyone is familiar with the save button. Replacing it with anything would be against user experience.. And about auto save, it's an option but not feasible for everything and everywhere as it causes the hassle of undoing changes again n again..

My opinion.

Thanks

Fasih
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I see more and more the "upload into the cloud" button in stead of a floppy. I believe this will eventually replace the floppy.

Kriem
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    This is fair enough if you really are saving to a "cloud" storage device, but if you are saving to the local disk, server or network drive then a "cloud" icon is misleading IMO. – MrWhite Jan 03 '14 at 15:01
  • Maybe a block of ice would be a good alternative for local storage? (Different form of water) To say nothing of streaming. – BreakingGnus Jun 17 '21 at 15:32
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A gentler way of phasing out the floppy disk save icon can be seen by the approach taken by the Samsung design team to blend the old with the new, transitioning the save icon with the download icon that has become more prevalent in the modern age.

enter image description here

Michael Lai
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  • Thanks, that's very interesting! I have noticed that the floppy disk icon is rarer on smartphone interfaces. I think also the concept of saving is getting rarer as well, more and more apps automatically save and don't expose the need to save to the user. – Flimm Mar 11 '22 at 08:52
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When you click the save button you can save your file to your hard drive, a USB stick, an SD card, anything. It seems pointless having a picture of an arrow going toward a specific storage device, especially as anyone who knows nothing about computers will see a hard drive icon as nothing more than a grey square. The point is, you want your file to be remembered, so why not have an image of something relating to memory, e.g. a brain? (Also, I'm 15 and I know what a floppy disk is, just saying)

supgecko
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  • But, technically speaking, the file is already in memory. Saving is writing the file from the memory to the disk. Let's not confuse things even more ! :-) – Nicolas Barbulesco Mar 17 '13 at 11:33
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New "save" icon could be just letter "S". Everybody knows that "Ctrl+S" means "Save".

save icon

Or "Save" icon could be just "Cloud" icon.

cloud save icon

lime-cat
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    I want to upvote you more because of the cloud, but that giant circle-S is so awful that I cannot bear it – New Alexandria Aug 19 '13 at 12:52
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    Meh, english only. Icons should be as language-independent as possible. – Martijn Sep 10 '13 at 14:57
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    Be careful....look your S icon far enough from your screen....it is two dolphins which dance together. We have the same effect with a logo for a ton near m'y home the S or Seyne for La Seyne Sur Mer – pierre lebailly Oct 02 '13 at 06:03
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    The cloud icon has it's own meaning though. When used with the arrow, it indicates something is to be uploaded to the internet. – 16807 May 15 '15 at 20:19
  • I disagree with this answer: "S" is language dependent, and not everyone knows the keyboard shortcut ctrl-s, which only applies to devices with keyboards anyway. "S" could stand for many other words. And the second icon looks like it means "upload to the cloud" to me, not "save". – Flimm Mar 11 '22 at 08:40
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In order to replace the save icon with something else we need to think about what it does.

Evernote has replaced the save command with Synchronise.

Even though it will automatically synchronise, the common shortcut for save, "Ctrl + S" / "Command + S" triggers the synchronisation for ease of mind that it has actually been saved.

Evernote Synchronization

Martyn
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Last week, I was confronted with exactly this question; I decided against the floppy icon and used a arrow pointing to a harddisk instead, similar to this one:

hard disk save icon

Mechanical snail
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ammoQ
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    That looks like a "download" link to me, not a "save" link. – Charles Boyung Jan 18 '11 at 14:25
  • @Charles I can't think of many cases where those might be confused or would represent different actions – Bobby Jack Jan 19 '11 at 00:36
  • Although I suspect few people open their machines and have seen their bare hard disk, this should work because to them it looks like 'putting/saving inside a steel box'. – DeepSpace101 Mar 09 '12 at 21:23
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    @CharlesBoyung: Why does this look like a download link? Because it is commonly used as such. This is why also the floppy works as a save icon; it is common use. – awe Jun 19 '12 at 08:22
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    @awe - that was my point. The icon he suggests does not work as a save icon because it is commonly used for something else entirely. – Charles Boyung Jun 19 '12 at 19:00
  • @CharlesBoyung: I know. It was an attempt to emphasize your point. It may be poorly formulated, but my intention was to support your statement, and at the same time transfer that point to the floppy-icon used for save. – awe Aug 19 '13 at 12:03
  • My hard drive doesn't look like this in 2014. OMG INVALID ICON! – Lightness Races in Orbit Jan 04 '14 at 19:03
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    @LightnessRacesinOrbit: A hard drive has never looked like that. Some computer cases may look similar, which also adds to the common confusion that the computer box is referred to as the hard-disk (and the monitor is referred to as the computer...) – awe Feb 12 '14 at 10:44
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    @awe: No? Are you sure? – Lightness Races in Orbit Feb 12 '14 at 10:49
  • @LightnessRacesinOrbit: No, I'm not sure. I did have "external hard drives" in the back of my head as a nagging feeling to my comment, but I chose to ignore it. – awe Feb 12 '14 at 11:03
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The artifact represented by the icon (the 3.5" diskette) is well past its sell by date or even recognition (some usability studies I've been in have users referring to it as the washing machine or dishwasher icon..;), however the metaphor of what it represents - saving data - persists. Plenty of other examples abound (financial apps using checkbooks for reconciliation, the iPhone using the old-style Larry King-type microphone for recording), and so on.

I would suggest the icon is fine for most users who want to explicitly save content - the context of use is clear and metaphor is strong.

A straw poll on whether replacing it with cloud or pendrive icon option is here: http://polarb.com/9772 YMMV with such a crowdsourced poll. Ultimately, I think the question reminds us never to assume anything with users, but to test it in realistic contexts and design and deploy accordingly. In these days of automatic saves, backups, influence of implicit save models on mobile device and how user expectations are changing, that testing best practice comes to the fore now even more.

uobroin
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    How is this statement backed up? "Too many people have no idea what it is now." Are there usability studies backing this up or is this just an assumption based on opinion? If it is true that the floppy disc for save has become unrecognizable (or unfamiliar/not intuitive), then the problem to solve is to define an alternative. A new paradigm would need to be established. This would be a huge learning curve, considering this icon is so prevalently used. In this case, learning something new doesn't seem to outweigh the need for others to simply become familiar with the existing paradigm. – Dmacatude Mar 05 '14 at 13:42
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Ask anyone under 18 what a floppy disk is. Even the name floppy disk is a legacy from when they were actually floppy. Yes, it's still understood to mean save, but that's like saying "tape it" when using your DVR or calling iTunes the record store. Soon even the file folder will be outmoded.

The down arrow into a box does look like download, because it points down. Into a load? But as for a new save, is there a newer metaphor? Maybe the red dot on a video camera or a safe. Ziploc? Maybe it's check-in and should be a check. Something like the Apple time machine logo?

JonW
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dan linsky
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    Im 15 and know what floppies are – Cole Tobin May 16 '12 at 14:14
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    3.5" floppies were still floppy. It referred to the disk, inside the plastic casing, not the casing itself. – Charles Boyung Jan 18 '13 at 22:01
  • "Record" is not outdated. "LP" is. A record is still a recording. An album is still a collection of... something (songs in this case). Good words, those. But what is a correct word for a single "track" of music? That is the real question! –  Jan 31 '17 at 19:06
  • What do you suggest as an alternative? I can't find an alternative in your answer that is superior to the floppy disk icon. It's not a complete answer. – Flimm Mar 11 '22 at 08:42