diff --git a/doc/release/upcoming_changes/26388.performance.rst b/doc/release/upcoming_changes/26388.performance.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..885bc28c4a78
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/release/upcoming_changes/26388.performance.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+ * `numpy.save` now uses pickle protocol version 4 for saving arrays with
+   object dtype, which allows for pickle objects larger than 4GB and improves
+   saving speed by about 5% for large arrays.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/numpy/lib/_npyio_impl.py b/numpy/lib/_npyio_impl.py
index 8986b94fd500..8940ca4463c2 100644
--- a/numpy/lib/_npyio_impl.py
+++ b/numpy/lib/_npyio_impl.py
@@ -520,7 +520,7 @@ def save(file, arr, allow_pickle=True, fix_imports=True):
         arbitrary code) and portability (pickled objects may not be loadable
         on different Python installations, for example if the stored objects
         require libraries that are not available, and not all pickled data is
-        compatible between Python 2 and Python 3).
+        compatible between different versions of Python).
         Default: True
     fix_imports : bool, optional
         Only useful in forcing objects in object arrays on Python 3 to be
diff --git a/numpy/lib/format.py b/numpy/lib/format.py
index 87f35a7a4f60..8e14dfe4bcab 100644
--- a/numpy/lib/format.py
+++ b/numpy/lib/format.py
@@ -741,7 +741,7 @@ def write_array(fp, array, version=None, allow_pickle=True, pickle_kwargs=None):
                                  "when allow_pickle=False")
         if pickle_kwargs is None:
             pickle_kwargs = {}
-        pickle.dump(array, fp, protocol=3, **pickle_kwargs)
+        pickle.dump(array, fp, protocol=4, **pickle_kwargs)
     elif array.flags.f_contiguous and not array.flags.c_contiguous:
         if isfileobj(fp):
             array.T.tofile(fp)