This doesn't work on Overleaf, but locally this setup has saved me quite some time: % Tikz caching (use make -f main.makefile to rebuild figures). \use

This doesn't work on Overleaf, but locally this setup has saved me quite some time: % Tikz caching (use make -f main.makefile to rebuild figures). \usetikzlibrary{external} \tikzexternalize[mode=list and make,prefix=tikzcache/] % Comment out this line to disable caching. \newcommand{\includetikz}[1]{% \tikzsetnextfilename{#1}% \tikzpicturedependsonfile{#1.tikz}% \input{#1.tikz}% } I would have all Tikz sources in a tikz/ directory, and include them where needed using e.g. \includetikz{tikz/foo}. Then the above would add an extra step to the compilation (make -f main.makefile), but in return all images would only be recompiled as necessary and otherwise included as a cached .pdf.