A floppy disk is fine, just like Photoshop uses terms like dodge and burn, references to obsolete dark room methods, like cutting and “pasting” were literally how some layout projects worked.

Referencing the last physical incarnation of saving a file seems fitting!

Up arrow to a cloud, or down arrow to a platter (which, ironically, is also out-of-date)

It's just the download button, truly. They already associate that icon with saving files from the web. The down arrow pointing to a rectangle or laptop icon in word or similar app wouldn't be too ambiguous...

Or, truly, the floppy will just become a nebulous, originless heiroglyph meaning "keep this information for later and let me put it somewhere to find it again," and some Gen. Beta child will get curious and learn about ye olde days of magnetic media from Wikipedia.

Maybe a life preserver ring won’t become out of date? 🛟

☁️ is a (rather terrible) way to indicate cloud saving.

I've seen an SD card used before.

sometimes there is a arrow going into a folder

but then again noone knows what the foldwe icon is supposed to depict nowadays either

It's time we upgrade the icon to Zip drives, or maybe Sony memory sticks.

This:

Or a Christian cross (“Jesus saves”)

I once saw a usb thumb drive as an icon. Guess it didn't take off.

It might be the best actually since they're still around and, never say never, may not go anywhere. Though a USBA icon will confuse the USBC crowd soon enough.

A disc is also been used for some.

parchment & quill 📜🪶

Yeah it's old and loses relevance, but we can go older and it circles back to recognizable again

✍️

Or just say the vending machine is because it's a store and you are storing the data when you save

Would need to have some sort of drive icon - maybe? - that is unlikely to ever be forgotten.. with a down arrow embedded inside.

Hmmm.

A frog from Mother 3

Realistically the icon could br anything, even the green check emoji: ✅

But if we want to retain the thematic reference to a disk- icon-ify an m.2 2230 or similar and literally just swap em. lol

Image for reference:

I think one GTK/GNOME icon set had downward arrow pointing to a hard disk. Seemed clear enough to me.