Your this big file size may be caused by the revision feature. Every time you click save button or ctrl+s, xmind 2012 will save a revision in this .xmind file. You can check in the editing history view, ( file — editing history )
You can delete old revisions to reduce the file size. BTW, you’re using the XMind 2012 SE (v3.3.1), yes? In this version, you can even disable this feature in this view.

I am impressed with how much thought and experimentation you put into fixing these issues! I just sent an email to Stephen Zhu and the support team at XMind, so that they can respond to this directly on the thread.

Have you tried copy-pasting branches directly into another mind mapping software? There is some compatibility.

Matt

Those changes drove an increase in file size as great as the size of the copy pasted reconstituted file.

As I said, the XMind design if majorly flawed.

I am stuck as there is no easy way to convert all that work to another mapping tool without buying XMind…talk about a Hobson’s Choice or is it a Catch-22?

This is just inexcusable…

I am now in a position to split apart the file. As mentioned earlier, my original is over 100MB. Once I started copying topic branches and pasting to a brand new map each (I had to open and close after each iteration, closing the original before pasting to new), I noticed that the resultant map files were tiny in comparison – I ended up with six files ranging from 200KB to 2000KB in size!!

Seeing that, I decided to combine them all back into a single brand new map…file size is 4800KB=4.8MB!!!

It seems that it must retain each and every change you ever make – not that you can “undo” every single step back to the point where you first created the map.

Even I, with limited technical skill, know that is very poor design!!

No problem now opening up the complete map with multiple applications open. I left the parms in place though, just to have the “headroom”.

Not sure I could have achieved this in one cut and paste given the memory issue. At this point, I don’t want to bother testing that.

Hope this all helps someone who runs into the same / similar issue! It was very hard finding anything helpful out there specific to this problem. But this site seems to have a good presence on google and has a quality discussion going here along with an engaged “mind map master” in Matt.

Thanks Matt for providing this platform.

After last night’s nightly rebooting, no longer could open the big XMind map. For others who may encounter this, to fix, I did these steps:

1) Uninstalled Java (even though was current) and re-downloaded and re-installed.
2) Uninstalled XMind and re-downloaded and re-installed.
3) Edited the ini file, per the above parms
4) Made sure no other apps that might use Java are running – e.g. browser, (who knows about MS Services though)
5) Started XMind using the application icon (vs double clicking the map icon)
6) Open the map from within XMind

Not sure if the first two steps are required, but I wanted to make sure rather than do this with multiple iterations. For some reason, opening the map directly causes problems, but opening from within XMind, once the application is running doesn’t.

After starting XMind, other apps can be started, and XMind does not seem to mind – just don’t try to close and restart XMind while those apps are running.

Running Task Manager (hit CTRL-ALT-DEL), under the Performance Tab I see that starting XMind uses up about 0.5GB, then loading the map pushes that up by another 1.0GB, for a total memory use of 1.5GB.

With the parms set to 2GB, not sure why there should be a problem. With Firefox running while I type this, total mem in use is 3.55GB, after accounting for cached memory, it reports that 2.5GB is free on my 8GB machine.

Surprisingly, the map file itself is only about 100MB!! So there looks like some opportunity for some memory efficiency.

I don’t know enough to understand why it does not “see” the rest of the memory, nor not use up the remaining 0.5GB (of 2GB specified via the parms in the ini).

Either XMind chose the wrong platform to program this on, or they don’t have the skills to make this robust. Nor do they seem to have some basics nailed, for instance, to run a pre-emptive check to enable a more elegant exit on memory based failure. Instead, in this case, they leave the user to guess what to do, and to delve deep into programmer territory to solve.

None of this speaks well of what to expect in the paid version of XMind, unfortunately, as it seems to have a good balance of function, usability, and intuitive interface otherwise.

You can easily move branches from one sheet to another, or one workbook to another, but I understand what you’re saying.

The New Sheet from Topic indeed does not delete the sub-branches of the branch you applied it to. You need to delete them yourself because they are now in that new sheet. It is simply an easy way to break down your map in smaller chunks.

Good question about Mindjet X5. I unfortunately cannot answer your question, and couldn’t find an answer online either.

Best,

Matt

I had to edit the XMind.ini file and enter these three parameters (in case someone else is looking for a way to fix this):

-XX:MaxPermSize=256M
-Xms1G
-Xmx1G

It took a bit of trial and error, as I found references to this on generic Java discussions regarding memory errors (on sites not related to XMind). FYI…I had failures with MaxPermSize=1G, so I left it at 256M. The above may help many with relatively current machines. I am running 8GB ram on an i5 CPU. Not sure if older machines can handle it as well, but one could step it down to something less than the 1024M=1G I have it at.

I have since added many more nodes, and it works fine saving, no slow downs, no freezing.

Why so many nodes on one map, you ask? Largely because I know many of the actual relationships, but not necessarily the optimal order between them all. And, I am capturing some level of details so as to not have to look-up and re-read everything again while I am executing the instructions.

If I had them on separate maps, and if I wanted to move a leg, I supposed, at best, I’d have two maps open and would have to cut and paste from one to the other. At worst, I might not be able to open both simultaneously, therefore, cannot move a node.

I’ve not tested this to see. Once I am comfortable with the high level placement, I will split it up. Right now I’m still adding and moving some things around.

Creating separate sheets did not alleviate the memory problem. “New Sheet from Topic” makes it dead simple, but it does not remove the nodes down that branch in the original sheet. Worse, neither do changes made to one or the other get replicated in the opposing sheet, rendering that “link” unusable. This is a known fundamental problem of this feature for XMind for some time and it has not been addressed yet.

As for export, I am limited to Text or FreeMind formats. The rest generate a “Buy Now” upgrade pop up. And, FreeMind gives some kind of error when it is triggered by XMind to run during the export process (in attempting to convert to the version of Freemind that I have installed – the latest). So, that leaves Text only.

I did try MindMaple while I was still searching for a fix. It looks interesting, but it did not have the Logic Chart with automatic numbering that I was needing. What I did like was the easier hyperlinking to web sites. Right now I paste the HTTP links into the Notes view of XMind for each node – I find it easier as I am entering notes along with that, and it saves on the size of the “tree”.

Would MindJet X5 Pro have this feature (Logic Chart and auto numbering)? I might be able to get my hands on that, plus I understand that, even though it is older, it has more features than XMind Pro does today. Correct?