I wonder if we would would really “expect” a new safe icon. Most modern software has auto-saving. Games for example often just use a spinning circle to indicate it’s saving. Word and google docs just say “don’t worry, we’re continuously saving your work” when you hit Ctrl + S.
I imagine if you want to save something locally you have the downward arrow for downloading, or some other icon for moving and copying files.
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
Hope you are right.
But really the Save icon will become: ✨
Bill Gates eventual tombstone.
Can’t wait to impress someone by jumping over it in one clear hop.

What a save!
Okay.
Wow!
This is the correct answer.
I think the download icons will become synonymous with saving. It’s functionally the same, move thingy to a location on your computer.
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.
Just change one pixel and call it new.
My vote is just a cylinder. It’s been used for the hard drive activity light for decades already so shouldn’t be too much of a leap. Doesn’t look like any piece of technology.

Doesn’t look like any piece of technology.
It actually does, just not modern technology. It’s a simplified drum memory unit, the predecessor to the hard disk drive.
That’s already the symbol of a data store, so if you hit it I’d expect it to bring up the connection configuration
What if we coupled the cylinder symbol with a ‘going to’ arrow ⤵️ above it?
What’s a hard drive? Is that like iCloud or something?
It’s an ancient device that replicates the cloud on your computer
A cassette tape.
Hahahaha, dammit you win
An arrow pointing up at a line. Preferably with each being a different colour.
The arrow indicates movement. The line is abstract. But with the colour coding it carries the idea of ‘putting the thing into the other thing’.
The rest is learned pattern recognition. A download is a down arrow in a circle because you are taking the thing from the other thing. So saving is an arrow to a line because you are putting the thing in the other thing.
LibreOffice on Ubuntu has a down-arrow “save” icon, and every time I look at it I think “that’s a download icon”. Up arrow versions of that are upload icons. Neither really conveys “save”.
Probably an arrow pointing down inside of a circle, like the download icon. Most of the software I use just has text saying “Save file” and no icon, and I usually press control + S anyways so I don’t have much of an opinion regarding this
Let’s be real, when some shitty company (MS) gets around to it, it will be: ☁️⬆️
Probably an arrow pointing to a hard drive.
Why a hard drive? Storage is moving to solid state. That icon would also be obsolete in a few years.
Because solid state drives can look like anything but a hard drive has the distinct arm and platter.
A CD image. Got to move with the times.
Isnt it the glorious zip disks turn first?
A quill
We’re going even more old fashioned.
Arrow to disk.
Why a disk? Storage isn’t even disk shaped anymore.
“Disk” means a memory chip here.













