Every release since Flash Professional CS5 saves its documents as XFL. Each one added
attributes and elements to the same XML, and a reader that skips what it does not know
reads them all, so they are one format. The release that saved a document is in the
root element of DOMDocument.xml: xflVersion, and the program
in creatorInfo, versionInfo, majorVersion,
minorVersion and buildNumber.
xflVersion
| xflVersion | Written by |
|---|---|
2.0 | Flash Professional CS5 |
2.1 | Flash Professional CS5.5 |
2.2 | Flash Professional CS6 |
2.4 | Flash Professional CC |
These values come from the JPEXS decompiler, which writes XFL for each of these
releases. The documents examined for this site are all 2.1, saved by
Flash CS5.5 (Saved by Adobe Flash Macintosh 11.5 build 349). The values
written by later releases, up to Animate 2024, have not been confirmed.
Releases
| Release | Released | Version | xflVersion | Save as older |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adobe Flash CS5 Professional | April 2010 | 11 | 2.0 | Flash CS4 (a binary FLA) |
| Adobe Flash CS5.5 Professional | 2011 | 11.5 | 2.1 | Flash CS5; users report CS4 too |
| Adobe Flash CS6 Professional | 2012 | 12 | 2.2 | not known |
| Adobe Flash Professional CC | June 2013 | 13 | 2.4 | none |
| Adobe Flash Professional CC 2014 | June 2014 | 14 | not confirmed | none |
| Adobe Flash Professional CC 2015 | June 2015 | 15 | not confirmed | none |
| Adobe Animate CC (renamed) | February 2016 | 15.1 | not confirmed | none |
| Adobe Animate CC 2017 | November 2016 | 16 | not confirmed | none |
| Adobe Animate CC 2018 | October 2017 | 18 | not confirmed | none |
| Adobe Animate CC 2019 | October 2018 | 19 | not confirmed | none |
| Adobe Animate 2020 | November 2019 | 20 | not confirmed | none |
| Adobe Animate 2021 | October 2020 | 21 | not confirmed | none |
| Adobe Animate 2022 | October 2021 | 22 | not confirmed | none |
| Adobe Animate 2023 | October 2022 | 23 | not confirmed | none |
| Adobe Animate 2024 | October 2023 | 24 | not confirmed | none |
| Adobe Animate 2024, latest update | September 2026 | 24.0.15 | not confirmed | none |
- Flash CS5 opens binary FLAs from every earlier release, and so does every release since. Opened and saved again, they become XFL. Saving as Flash CS4 from CS5 (and, users report, from CS5.5) writes the binary format of Flash MX 2004 to CS4.
- From Flash Professional CC, Save As offers no older formats.
- The release days of CS5.5 and CS6 are not certain, so only the years are given.
- There was no Animate 2025 or 2026. On 2 February 2026 Adobe announced that Animate would stop being sold on 1 March 2026, then reversed the decision two days later: Animate stays available in maintenance mode, with security and bug fixes but no new features. Version 24.0.15, a security update, is the latest.
Every release is on the FLA page, back to FutureSplash Animator.