I started a new character a couple days ago and I'm only about 7 hours in but I noticed that my save file size for this new character is about 6.7 MBs. Which is weird because I have a level 50 character that I've had for about 90 hours which has a save file size of 14.5 MBs. Is my save file expanding too fast? I don't think it was this fast with other save files.

Almost 7 mb after 7 hours? Yes, it looks like it's expanding too fast. You must have a mod that screw your game. What do you have with this character that is different of the other one you mention?

Absolutely nothing different. The same goes for my other character which is level 62. But its at 19-20 MBs and I've played on it for maybe 250 hours. This is weird.

Do you know what it is?

Well, there must be a reason for this. They both have the exact same mods installed, nothing new; you didn't change the load order, whatever? You can do a text file of your save. Load it, open the console and enter

save temp 1

This will minimize the game in the task bar and open the text save in a text editor. See what it says (it's mainly a list of all what your save contains, nothing you could edit). You can even post it here within spoilers tags.

Its not letting me paste it on here. Every time I do it the tab on Chrome freezes but opening another tab works fine. Its just not letting me paste the damn thing. Also, I don't know how to read it, there's a lot of stuff on there.

Do another one with your other character, the one that has normal size saves, and compare them.

When you play, do you systematically remove everything once you've killed bandits; do you leave things behind, like weapons and shields?

I just leave it as is. I don't bother with picking up weapons and shields. But how should I compare them? There's a [censored] ton of stuff and modders which half ass their work are really pissing me off.

This is the reason of your bloated save. When bandits die in the game, they drop their weapons and shields; you can see the weapons on the floor but you can't see the shields (don't ask me why). You must pick up everything and put them back into the corpses, if you don't want to take them, or they will stay on the ground after the bodies have disappeared and clutter your saves. For now, read this and do what it's said: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1401765-merchant-bug/?p=21354200#entry21354200

Or, if you are not to advanced in your game, get back to the beginning and don't leave anything behind this time!

There's no way that can be it. I've been leaving stuff behind since forever. Now that I think of it. I noticed that after I exited Ustengrav. The bandits you would usually fight were naked. Which is weird because they were clothed before I entered Ustengrav, also, when I got to Kynesgrove with Delphine there was a naked Stormcloak corpse, which is also weird because I always remember them as clothed, all these corpses also had their usual armor on. Also, I downloaded a patch for the Solitude Docks District. But could that really be the problem?

Should I repost this in the Skyrim Mods forum?

So, you had something different. Try without this mod, then, but I would get back to the beginning so that nothing remains of this mod in my save.

I think here is the right place for this.

Restart a new save?. I think I'll risk it on this one.

But is it safe to uninstall this mod? I'm not sure if uninstalling it would worsen my other save files. I mean I've had the current Solitude Docks District mod for a long time on version 1.7, but it was after version 1.8 when I barely touched my other save files and when I started a new playthrough. I think I'm going to uninstall this mod completely and never deal with it again if its safe.

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/22821/?tab=1&navtag=%2Fajax%2Fmoddescription%2F%3Fid%3D22821%26preview%3D&pUp=1

I see that t here is an esm and lots of esp. Not safe to just remove it and carry on like that, but you can still try.

[censored], maybe I should roll back to 1.7?

Okay, I had a crap ton of backups so I'm rolling back to older save files for this one after I roll back to version 1.7.

Okay, I rolled back to version 1.7 and rolled back to backup saves before I downloaded 1.8 for Solitude Docks District. I deleted the new save I made, I guess that's a lost cause. I'll try playing on one of my saves tomorrow night, if it doesn't increase by one megabyte like it did today, then it should be fine. Hopefully.

I hope so too.

Okay. I just rolled it back. Played for maybe 48 minutes or so on one of my saves I rolled back to. The save I rolled back to (level 50, 93-94 hours) was about 14,817 KBs, after 40 minutes of gameplay it was about 14,900 KBs. It should be fine. I mean if it gains 83 KBs after 48 minutes or so, it would take about 50 hours for it to gain about 4 MBs.

It should be good right?

Also, besides updating Solitude Docks District to 1.8, I also downloaded the Heavy Armory mod, but the armory mod doesn't give me any issues, its just a weapons mod and I downloaded it weeks before I started a new game.

Looks like it's good. I read the comment you posted on the mod page; I hope it will draw the user's attention so that they don't have the problems you just experienced.

Yeah I should have been more careful with what mods I download from. Apparently the mod had navmesh file issues for over a year until 1.8. I didn't have any issues with it so I was lucky.

Kind of related, but wouldn't help keep save file size down if the screen caps weren't embedded into the save game file? Surely it would cut down the files size by at least 3MB? I wonder if gamesas will have separate screen cap image files 'linked' to the save game files but not part of the file itself in future TES games.

Maybe? I'm not too sure. It looks like Bethesda [censored] up the coding even more with Skyrim, I have a character on Oblivion (for Xbox) and it never went over 2 MBs.

I would start worrying if its 7 hours and 12 or more MB. I don't know what Beth did to the .ess structure for Skyrim, but it's something they definitely took out as this isn't an issue at all for Oblivion.

I'll stop here though before people start making BS claims of having 1500hr games and only 10mb save files.