--- title: GIMP Making Progress On New Project File Format After... description: GIMP developers are working on a new project file format to eventually replace or complement the aging XCF format used since 1997. The new format will use a... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/gimp-making-progress-on-new-project-file-format-after-nearly-30-years-with-xcf-kvphtyljd twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: GIMP Making Progress On New Project File Format After Nearly 30 Years With XCF | daily.dev og:description: GIMP developers are working on a new project file format to eventually replace or complement the aging XCF format used since 1997. The new format will use a... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/gimp-making-progress-on-new-project-file-format-after-nearly-30-years-with-xcf-kvphtyljd og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/KVPhTylJD.png og:image:alt: GIMP Making Progress On New Project File Format After Nearly 30 Years With XCF og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # GIMP Making Progress On New Project File Format After Nearly 30 Years With XCF **[Phoronix](https://daily.dev/sources/phoronix)** · 1 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary GIMP developers are working on a new project file format to eventually replace or complement the aging XCF format used since 1997. The new format will use a zipped XML structure, enabling more efficient file operations, auto-saving, and better handling of large and multi-page projects, with animation features planned for GIMP 3.6 benefiting as well. Backwards compatibility with XCF will be retained. Other ongoing work includes brush improvements, non-destructive filter enhancements, Adobe PSD support, and native file chooser dialog integration. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Is GIMP replacing its XCF file format with something new? GIMP is developing a new project file format based on a zipped XML structure to eventually work alongside or succeed XCF, which has been the primary format since 1997. The new format aims to enable more efficient file operations, auto-saving, and better handling of large and multi-page projects, and will better support animation features planned for GIMP 3.6. Backwards compatibility with XCF will be retained, and the format is still under design and implementation. _Follow daily.dev for updates on GIMP's file format changes before they land in a stable release._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [GIMP Post-3.2 Will Be Looking At Hardware Acceleration, Full CMYK & More](https://daily.dev/posts/gimp-post-3-2-will-be-looking-at-hardware-acceleration-full-cmyk-more-7wymzqpit) · Phoronix · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [GIMP 3.2 Hits Release Candidate with Improved Text Editing \+ More](https://daily.dev/posts/gimp-3-2-hits-release-candidate-with-improved-text-editing-more-e2p5pxjif) · omg\! ubuntu\! · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [GIMP 3.2 finally added the features that could make it worth using again](https://daily.dev/posts/gimp-3-2-finally-added-the-features-that-could-make-it-worth-using-again-6d44iivuq) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#open-source](https://daily.dev/tags/open-source), [#image-editing](https://daily.dev/tags/image-editing) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/gimp-making-progress-on-new-project-file-format-after-nearly-30-years-with-xcf-kvphtyljd) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"GIMP Making Progress On New Project File Format After Nearly 30 Years With XCF","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/gimp-making-progress-on-new-project-file-format-after-nearly-30-years-with-xcf-kvphtyljd","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/gimp-making-progress-on-new-project-file-format-after-nearly-30-years-with-xcf-kvphtyljd"},"datePublished":"2026-08-16T20:18:14.736Z","dateModified":"2026-08-20T23:27:58.908Z","description":"GIMP developers are working on a new project file format to eventually replace or complement the aging XCF format used since 1997. 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The new format aims to enable more efficient file operations, auto-saving, and better handling of large and multi-page projects, and will better support animation features planned for GIMP 3.6. Backwards compatibility with XCF will be retained, and the format is still under design and implementation. Follow daily.dev for updates on GIMP's file format changes before they land in a stable release."}}]} ```