Its still the same. Even something as simple as just to pan across the screen takes 10 seconds. God forbid you're actually making a catalogue with more than 1 item in the page. Pagemaker in the 90's was faster than Indesign is right now. Technology is supposed to progress, not regress. And Adobe seems to be doing nothing to optimize the software performance despite increasing subscription fees.

If you scroll down I commented on this in 2020 and it is STILL the case in 2025. 5 years and if anything, it is even SLOWER. InDesign is painfully slow at selecting, moving, unselecting - everything comes with a major lag. Over the last 5 years I've been on numerous top spec computers and the one thing in common is painfully slow InDesign performance. Adobe should be ashamed. For the extortionate price we pay, the software should work.

I have the same problems; iMac, no 3rd party plugins. Both InDesign and Photoshop take forever to load and to quit, and will also be very laggy at times when performing simple tasks; Illustrator is relatively quick, in contrast.

Thanks for reporting. Adobe is certainly reviewing the issue.

Well it's 2022 now and this issue still hasn't been resolved. InDesign 2022 running on Monterey 12.1 and I still get the beachball every few seconds. Only slight workaround I've noticed that works is exporting as an IDML file and working from that. But the second you save it as an indd file, the beachball returns. Do I just throw the whole computer away and start over?

The spinning wheel is a reason I still use InDesign CS6. Most of the commands are instant in CS6, I choose a font = the change is immediately applied. In CC, I have to wait several seconds. I can't believe someone can actually do serious work in CC. On my Macbook Pro, I can see the spinning wheel constantly.

mac mid 18, os 10.15.7, indesign 2021 (16.0.1).

spinning ball coming every now and then … not able to reproduce, behaviour is arbitrary. but happens often when needing to do something creative or fast, which then is always VERY annoying to wait. I wish you could solve that behaviour or REALLY rework indesign, since it seems to hapen to a lot of other people too.

thanks in advance.

Well, it's not just Illustrator that's gone downhill (or, more aptly, fallen off of a cliff), it's InDesign, too. I thought the slowness and lag in ID was due to my old computer, but I have a brand new, top-of-the-line iMac and the latest version of InDesign. Almost anything I do has a lag from input to execution. A split second lag is the best case scenario, but the spinning wheel of death is the norm. What the ****??? I'm working with 2 page documents that are under 4 mb. I'm so sick of paying a premium for inferior product—especially when I know how well Adobe programs used to work. Using Adobe products has become an exercise in not losing my sh*t and throwing my computer through the window. Does Adobe ever even consider working with their users to address problems? Or are you just more concerned with adding marginally useful bells and whistles?

+1 Especially with linked Illustrator files

ID 15.1.2 on MBP 15" 2019 macOS Catalina 10.15.6
Since updating to ID 15.1.2 creating packages (File > Package) takes sooooo much time – especially collecting image files into the Links-folder. Feels like using a last century internet connection to copy them instead of a ssd. Really bad: There's no progress shown on the progress bar. The only way to figure out that ID still works ist to check the Links-folder again and again where you can see the files dropping in one after another …

This needs resolved. I'm sorry, but I have found numerous identical topics relating to this same issue in InDesign dating back the past few years. All of which end up getting 'solved' and closed which I guess stops people being able to add a comment so it looks like less of a problem. This is a major issue accross multiple versions of InDesign and it shows the underlying problem is simply not being fixed. I'm on a top spec laptop which breezes through 500mb+ PSD files so it is not an issue with my PC.

It's ridiculous that in 2020 I need to turn my network and internet off to get InDesign to work. No other Adobe apps display this behaviour so it is an innate InDesign bug.

If anyone else is experiencing this extremely slow behaviour, try turning the network off.

Same problems, it is impossible to work on files, that used to work flowless. Now it stucks for a few seconds after every click.
The problem started quite some time ago (last year) and after each uptade it gest worse.
I can't have two files open at the same time, because InDesign stucks completely and I have to reset it.
PC, 15.1.1 x64

I just downloaded the new In Design 15.1 and its very, very slow. The previous one as better. I am also using I'm using an iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2019)

Selecting an item (e.g. text frame) in small and really uncomplicated documents has slight but very noticeable delays/lags, almost as if the click hangs and makes the item drag a little instead of just being selected. Very annoying behaviour which makes for potentially sloppy layouts. I feel like I constantly have to be on my guard not to accidentally move an item by a slight amount when just wanting to select it.

Catalina 10.15.1 on MBP 2017. InDesign 15.0.1.209. But had this issue on CC 2019 and Mojave too. Thought it may have to do with GPU performance, but disabling it does not help.

Have been a long time ID user, and figured this was just a temporary thing that eventually would get fixed, but since upgrading to the latest, this has me concerned it may never disappear again.

Please, please fix.

Thank you Karen
Same as you except working with PC
slow, rotating ball thinking about every little editing process and d e l a y e d r e s p o n s e to typing
… and getting worse

I have also been having the same issues lately. I am working on a book layout and InDesign is lagging so much when it comes to rearranging text boxes, adding image frames, adjusting frames that already exist! I started using this last week and it's already dropped in performance which is super disappointing because I am almost done with the whole book layout! Adobe, please fix this!

I agree -- this is ridiculous. Used to be able to fly through Indesign. Now I feel like I need to write off half the time I;m spending to design with it.

Honestly it feels as though every time I make even the slightest adjustment to a text item that the application is reaching out to the Mother Ship to verify that I have the licensing permissions to use it. Good grief, you took a wonderful app and turned it into a train wreck.

What's going on and how can we get back to previous speedy performance?

Thank you

The temporary solution is to change the name of the image folder so to disable the dynamic links to picture as another user suggested but this is not how to work efficiently. Is Adobe going to fix this? A response would be nice.

I also tried working from my hard drive and disconnecting from the server. Same issues with slow performance. Also noticed when in preferences and switch the default Display Performance from Typical to Fast and hit OK InDesign is still in Typical Display. Same thing when going from Fast to Typical. Only way to get InDesign to the display preference of choice is to quit InDesign and then reopen it. Wondering if anyone else is experiencing this too.

InDesign is slow to almost unworkable. Mac OS Mojave, vs 10.14.6, InDesign 14.0.3. Copy an image, import an image, save the file, etc. Turned off preflight,
Everything is extremely slow. Disable Suitcase and that did nothing to improve InDesign's performance. Have no other 3rd party plugins. I reinstalled 14.0.3 didn't help. Uninstalled 14.0.3 and installed 14.0.2 didn't help. So slow! Barely workable and can't finish my work on time.
I'm using an iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2019) ,3.1 GHz Intel Core i5, 16 GB 2667 MHz DDR4, Radeon Pro 575X 4 GB.