And to add to the last comment I made...With those files I have saved to Dropbox...I get the popup when I am saving even to my hard drive and not to Dropbox. Usually I save my files to hard drive AND then upload to Dropbox later from my hard drive. So I get the popup even when I'm saving only to my hard drive and not to Dropbox.

This is happening to me too. I think it must have something to do with Dropbox. I just started saving docs to Dropbox. I tested this...I worked in a doc I haven't saved to Dropbox, and it seems the popup doesn't happen. Went back to the doc that I DID save to dropbox and I DID get the popup. Even thought I logged out of Dropbox and even closed down browser. Why oh why?

On a Mac, turn off "Show Icon Preview" under the "Show View Options" in the Finder for that folder or all folders. Illustrator sees the Mac OS as another program editing the file since it accesses it to render a file icon.

I am having this issue almost every time I save a file. I tried restarting Illustrator and reopening the file. Once I made a change and saved, I got the error again. On very rare occasions, it will save without the error popping up.

I have autosave turned on – the error doesn't pop up for autosave, only when I manually save the file.

Same issue. OS 10.13.2 // Illustrator CC 21.1.0

Every time I save a file. It has been open a while, Time Machine? Files are all on the hard drive. No Dropbox.

Having this error with all locations. On Adobe CC 2018 with Mac OS High Sierra. It also happened on Sierra.

Seeing this error with all files in all locations. Happens when a file has been changed and saved multiple times while still open.

"This file has been modified outside Illustrator. Do you want to continue"

i'm recently facing the same issue too. keep received the same pop-out while try to saving each of my files:

"This file has been modified outside Illustrator. Do you want to continue"

I notice this pop-out is appear once my mac OS upgrade to Sierra high.

Using 10.13.2 on Late 2014 iMac. I get this message every single time I save a document.

I'm on an iMac Mid-2011 with most current Mac OS High Sierra. I am also receiving this message —“file has been modified outside illustrator. Do you want to continue?” Please advise why this is happening. I‘m also getting a message that tells me “to rename my file.” Any fixes?

Save As... over the same file -> problem is gone.
Thx Tim

"This file has been modified outside Illustrator. Do you want to continue?"
Having same problem and really kills my work time.
Started when updated to macOS 10.13.2 and Illustrator 20.0.1 on same day. Using a MacPro with files on a external hard drive, NOT using file within DropBox, NO Time Machine, NO Cloud service, NO Auto Save. Can open new file and use for a while but as shown as I paste any element from another ai or eps file on the same hard drive, start getting message every time I save. PLEASE, PLEASE HELP!!! Driving me crazy and eating up time.

I have been having this issue since the 10.13.2 update and been driving me nuts. I think I have narrowed it down to Time Machine. For some reason, the backup drive doesn't always show up on my desktop so nothing gets backed up, I have to manually switch off and on the external hard drive for it be recognized and start backups. I shut down my computer every day, so I have to do this everyday. I don't always remember and just noticed that when the drive isn't recognized and not backing up, I don't get the error of "this file has been modified outside illustrator". I work directly from my hard drive on my iMac, not an external, not on the network and not a dropbox type folder. Hopefully that helps, or just adds to the confusion lol

Hi All,

We have tried to reproduce this issue inhouse and are not able to reproduce it. We are testing on 10.13.2 which is upgraded from 10.12.6. We have tired saving to dropbox, netwrok and local system.

Can you please share the following infortmation:

1. Are you using 10.13.2? If it is 10.13 or 10.13.1, then can you please verify after upgrading to 10.13.2 and see if the issue is still there?
2. Is the problem happening for particular size of files or with any file?
3. Does the problem go away if you delete the preferences of Illustrator?

Thanks
Anish Kumar
Illustrator QE Team

Same error... could this be due to auto saving/backing up to an external HD?

having the same issue and yes I'm using Dropbox which up until recently worked perfectly and did not produce this message

Thanks Tim, The "save as" over itself seems to do the trick

Having the same message and found it went away when the offending file was "save as" saved over itself.

I too am having this problem. Just glad I'm not alone at this point, but after using Illustrator all day for multiple deadlines, I'm extremely frustrated having closed that f'ing box over a hundred times.

I am getting this pop-up. I am saving to a DropBox folder on an external HD.