Gimp crashing?
Wrong meme, dude. I can't remember ever seeing or reading about Gimp crashing
this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2026
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Then look around in the comments to this post.
I did. 2 users report having problems, without giving any details. Everyone else never had GIMP crash.
I've used gimp for many years and the only time it ever crashed was recently when me and the developer figured out the glass tile filter wasn't functioning with multithreading capability.
As far as saving, though, I pretty much rarely save in the xcf format. Since I go between art programs I usually use psd if I need to maintain the layers on a work file, it can be reimported to GIMP but also to Clip Studio and others.
I've literally never had that problem. Not once.
Did this fix your issue, OP?
Same
yeah ive never had it happen either. sounds like a machine specific problem or something
Never had GIMP crash and I used it a lot! How much RAM are you running on?
16GB. I suspect the journal has an issue when it runs out of space. That’s no excuse to just crash, though.
What do you refer to by "journal" in GIMP?
The “Undo” history.
Hmm, but that shouldn't end up taking that much space either, no?
Does it really crash by filling up the RAM?
I'd expect there to be other reasons for it.
Though I haven't used it enough to get a long undo history <- as a potential reason for me to not have experienced the crash.
Hmm, but that shouldn’t end up taking that much space either, no?
I can confirm that it indeed uses little RAM.
I was wrangling lots of big images and noticed that RAM usage was increasing steadily. Though that only seems to happen when generating new layers (e.g. by combinding them). Moving, for instance, does nothing. However I just noticed that doing things like adjusting the contrast (using the values histogram tool, sorry don’t know its English name) or adjusting the color temperature adds 300–400MBs. Do each operation three times on 9–12 images and you have a deadly amount of RAM usage.
Hmm, I see.
Guess this part can do with some optimisation.
Or even offloading to disk.
Personally, I would be fine if GIMP had just said, “too many operations, shrinking Undo history” or something like that. No amount of optimization gets rid of this issue. At some point, the machine’s resources are just exhausted.
Konsole has the option to set scrollback line count and an alternative "infinite" where it just writes to a file on disk.
GIMP can also have that and can ask for which disk it wants you to use, so if you have a 20TB HDD to dedicate for that, might as well.
In this case, the most recent 10 or so remain in RAM, while others only have a reference to it, in RAM.
I prefer Krita. It's easier to migrate from PS since they have similar GUI. Gimp is a pain to work with.
Also, it has autosave, I disable autosave, but you would like it.
I'm confused. Is this saying that GIMP is incapable of saving projects? Or that GIMP crashes on you so often that you need to save often?
Both at once, even! It will occasionally crash when you go to save.
Thanks for confirming it. I was afraid I might be the only one.
Oh its for sure not you, this update is going to feature HEAVILY in my manifesto...
Gimp crashed multiple times on me in the last 3 hours. One of these was when I was trying to save in order to not lose all my work.
Gimp 2 didn’t do that as far as I can tell. Since version 3 didn’t bring any noticeable improvements (at least to me), I guess I’ll downgrade. Welp.
Please turn on coredumps, get a backtrace, and file a bug (and even better, fix the issue if you can.)
One does not rule the other out.
With gimp? What are you doing? I can't remember it ever crashing.
Sometimes using the color selection tool, sometimes creating an outline for text, sometimes literally saving.
I use GIMP for most of my workflow as a photographer. Have been for over a decade. Not once has GIMP crashed on me. Troubleshoot your hardware!
I was waiting for this comment. No, I won’t troubleshoot magical hardware that only fails in GIMP.
OK. I just want you to know that GIMP isn't crashing for the majority of its users.
Good news is: It's open source and actively maintained, so if you create a bug report, the devs can look into it.
I really only use it from time to time. I have used the color selection tool many times and I can't recall it ever crashing on saving. I suppose if I used it daily that experience would change a bit.
It crashes for me often, but I think only ever when saving/exporting or copying (image data), and I use gimp-devel...
Those programs are Inkscape and Blender when doing some fuckery, but GIMP? Only when I was using the beta GIMP 3 would that happen.
I never fucked any of these hard enough to crash on me.
I guess it would be easier to crash Blender by doing some ridiculous simulation but idk how to crash inkscape and gimp.
I actually couldn't crash Blender even when I managed to make it hang for multiple minutes.
Although I never ran custom Python scripts, so maybe that's something I left out.
Are you the same person (Kream) being snarky and rude to the developers in the bug report?
Oof
https://script-fu.github.io/funky/hub/plug-ins/folder/almost-autosave/
Needs to be started manually though.
Huh. I have never had Gimp crash on me once in fifteen years. I only use it to make shitty memes and fake my tax returns though so I guess YMMV.
Unrelated but I've been using Inkscape fairly heavily lately and encounter a lot of crashes.
It's never been something reproducible like a specific operation that causes it.
Thankfully it almost always dumps the svg to a file during the crash, unless it crashed right after saving, which is probably more common.
On my most recent new install of gimp a few weeks back, it now has a reopen last documents feature, and I think it does now cache your last open files in the event of a crash.
I've been using GIMP since the mid 2000's as a replacement for Photoshop4/5 and it has always been a great tool. I haven't ever really had any major stability issues with it.
Most likely you need to upgrade RAM
I have learned this about Maya after sitting near somebody who works in it daily.