An arrow pointing into a folder, similar to this. Sidesteps the tech issue altogether.
this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2025
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I mean, you're just replacing one archaic symbol with another.
I still use folders to organize paper documents. Taxes and medical stuff mostly.
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You can't just jump to the future, so use this one for the next decade:
... but platter drives are old hat, SSDs are the new hotness?
Can't skip a generation, gotta go from the floppy disk icon to the HDD icon for a while first.
Hard drives pre-dated floppy discs by 15 years.
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I reject the question. That's not a picture of a floppy disc, that is the glyph that means save
You literally called it the save symbol. And that's what it is...100 years from now, if we're still around and still have computers, the save icon will still be some stylized glyph based on the floppy disc
The existence of the floppy disc is already just a bit of trivia about the save icon
It's like asking what we should change the Bluetooth symbol to? Why do you yearn for the world to burn?
An icon can be any random glyph, but it has to stay recognizable and consistent in meaning, that's the entire concept here
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every letter in the alphabet started as a symbol of something 2500-6000 years ago, "A" for instance is an upside-down Ox head. people in future generations will continue using the floppy symbol, cuz they learned that means saving, despite floppies not being relevant to their lives
A squirrel, as in to squirrel it away
Best answer, but the save button should save the file somewhere random each time on the storage if the icon is a squirrel.
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A CD image. Got to move with the times.
A safe or vault symbol as an indicator for safe keeping
Let's be real, when some shitty company (MS) gets around to it, it will be: ☁️⬆️
Han solo frozen in carbonite
I've already seen it replaced in some applications. Don't like that.
I know it's "if you have to", but if I have any choice at all, the floppy icon stays.
What even is the point in changing it? Like sure we don't use floppies anymore, but it's a well established symbol for saving.
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Ouuh this is a fun one. I find that floppy disks look somewhat similar to SD-cards. Do you think the majority of kids (18 and younger) would recognize SD cards?
I do not!
If the floppy disk was no longer the save symbol for software, and I had to chose one, I'd chose the floppy disk symbol.
But you worded your question wisely to avoid that loophole, so I'm not sure what to use instead for an otherwise unique and ubiquitous symbol, already known as "the save file icon" for two generations that have not seen it.
While we're at it, let's also replace the phone icons with a rectangle, as to not confuse anyone.
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Down arrow pointing to a line, box, folder, or similar. Icons like that are what I've seen most commonly in software that has an icon for saving over the last few years.
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Given the impermanence of any storage medium today, I'm thinking a puff of smoke would convey the sentiment with the right level of user expectation.
💨
A dark souls campfire/site of grace
I think we should just keep the floppy disk symbol at this point, because it doesn't matter what it was originally based on or whether that exists any more--everyone knows what that symbol means, and it can't really be confused with anything else.
There's no point making an icon that looks like any other particular kind of storage device since those are changing all the time. So we either have to pick some real world thing like a safe or warehouse or grain silo or whatever. or invent some completely new symbol that's not related to anything and then everyone would have to learn it. Which takes us back to just keeping the floppy disk symbol.
A rotary pay phone powered by a steam engine.
Gotta go with an even older symbol, the ring buoy.
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