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[ID-4257184]InDesign 2025(v20.0) Performance issues: Delay or beach balls on basic operations

Problem: 

InDesign Performance issues: Delay or beach balls observed on basic operations on Macintosh

Steps to Reproduce:

No reliable reproducible steps

Impacted workflows:

  • Switching to InDesign
  • Open/Closing of Document
  • Edit/Scroll/Copy-paste/Highlight operation on Text
  • Text disappears, illustrations disappear
  • Imported or added text turns black until a style is applied.
  • Font menu highlight not following my mouse movement
  • Text will not change fonts until I click the mouse inside or outside the text box.
  • Resize a document window, the corner flies below the screen border
  • Click or Drag of the mouse
  • Switching between tools
  • "Waiting for UXP plugins to finish up remaining tasks."

Workaround:

  • Close the MAGNET application
  • Revert to InDesign 19.5, No performance lag is observed.
  • Restarting the machine and trashing the preferences seems to resolve the issue temporarily
  • Disabling any font manager software seems to resolve the issue. One customer confirmed that disabling "Rightfont" resolved the issue.
  • Uninstall-Reinstall seems to resolve the issue temporarily
  • Turn off Preflight seems to resolve the issue temporarily

Note:

  1. The issue seems to be specific to the MAC platform only. Impacted macOS (Sequoia, Sonoma, Ventura(maybe), Monterey)
  2. The issue seems to be specific to the MAC devices
    • Apple MacBook Pro M1/M2/M3
    • Apple MacBook Air M1/M2/M3
    • Apple Max Studio M1/M2/M3
    • Apple Mac mini M1/i7 Intel
  3. The issue exists for both old and new documents

Additional information needed:

  1. Screenshot of Memory usage while the issue is observed
  2. Is the "Contextual Task bar" shown? If yes, Disable it from "Window->Contextual Task bar"
  3. Please follow the below steps for InDesign 20.0.1.32 and InDesign PR 20.1.0.28 on Macintosh
    • Open Terminal in full screen mode
    • Drag the InDesign application on terminal (e.g. "/Applications/Adobe\ InDesign\ 2025/Adobe\ InDesign\ 2025.app/Contents/MacOS/Adobe\ InDesign\ 2025")
    • Copy the logs when you start facing the slowness in a text(.txt) file. Share the file with us at sharewithID@adobe.com.
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Yvonne Hubner shared this idea  ·   ·  Report…  ·  Admin →
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Need More Info  ·  AdminSanyam Talwar (Senior Lead Software Engineer, Adobe InDesign) responded  · 

Hi,

Thank you for reporting the issue. We are currently investigating the issue and updated the status in the Uservioce thread. However, the issue is still not reproducible in-house and we need additional information

  1. Screenshot of Memory usage while the issue is observed
  2. Is the "Contextual Task bar" shown? If yes, Disable it from "Window->Contextual Task bar"
  3. Please follow the below steps for InDesign 20.0.1.32 and InDesign PR 20.1.0.28 on Macintosh
  • Open Terminal in full screen mode
  • Drag the InDesign application on terminal (e.g. "/Applications/Adobe\ InDesign\ 2025/Adobe\ InDesign\ 2025.app/Contents/MacOS/Adobe\ InDesign\ 2025")
  • Copy the logs when you start facing the slowness in a text(.txt) file. Share the file with us at sharewithID@adobe.com.

—

Adobe InDesign Team

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  • Ryan Goodman commented  ·   ·  Report

    I am having the same issue. Editing text is so slow I cant even use the software. Going back to 2024 until they fix this! Ridiculous.

    Indesign 2025 IMacPro Seq. 15.0.1, 3.8 GhZ i7, AMD Radeon Pro 5700 XT 16 GB, 128 GB Ram

  • Julie Pietrini commented  ·   ·  Report

    Sequoia 15.0.1
    InDesign 2025
    Core i9

    I'm able to easily run AI, PS, and INDD simultaneously, however after this INDD update to 2025, I can't even click into the program without the beachball appearing.

    Right after the update, INDD immediately slowed to almost a complete stop. Every click I make launches the beachball. I've reset my preferences, restarted several times, and nothing. And it's a small doc - 10MB. I have 22 pages of edits to make and can't get through the first one.

    Just found one version earlier on CC, so have reinstalled that and it's flawless. Will NOT upgrade until this is all sorted out.

  • Aude commented  ·   ·  Report

    I have the latest OS update 15.0.1 (24A348) and since the update of InDesin 2025 each action, for example I change the tool it rows with the little wheel that turns

  • Aude B. commented  ·   ·  Report

    Same here, super laggy, even with document with no pictures. I'm going back to the older version.

  • Andreas Kuschner commented  ·   ·  Report

    macOS 15.0.1 (24A348)
    InDesign 20.0
    Slow with every document, especially while switching between windows for example to copy text from Textedit. Going back to InDesign always takes about 2 seconds. InDesign 19.5 no issues.

  • nitsch.lorand@curteaveche.ro commented  ·   ·  Report

    It seems that I solved this problem on my computer: quitting Rightfont immediately fixed the beachballing issue!
    So try disabling any font manager software and see that it helps.

  • Ed commented  ·   ·  Report

    I'm experiencing the exact same issue. Indesign 2025 is slow, laggy and I get the spinning wheel after performing the most basic function on any document I work on.

    I'm using a Macbook Pro, 2019 on OS Sequoia 15.0.1 (24A348).

  • Mr.Coffee News commented  ·   ·  Report

    OS Sonoma 14.7
    MacBook Air 15 inch with M2 chip
    Existing documents, I didn't try with a new document.
    Slowness is opening the file and trying to do almost anything, especially copy paste which takes about 20 seconds copy, then 20 seconds paste

  • Tracy Fannin commented  ·   ·  Report

    Same here – even without ANY document open! Just clicking into InDesign to try to start working, I get the spinning color wheel of death. 🤦‍♀️

  • Kris Hunt commented  ·   ·  Report

    It's immediately slow, and all the time. Even after a fresh restart of the whole computer. I noticed it was unusable garbage after one minute of use. You cannot expect us to believe you thoroughly tested this cr@p before you sent it out the door and didn't notice the issue.

  • Jerome Vautherin commented  ·   ·  Report

    Mac mini M2 with 32 Go ram
    macOS Sonoma

    Same issue here, beach ball every time and InDesign always not responding in activity monitor. Not usable at all, I will go back to previous version as soon as possible.

  • Filip Blazek commented  ·   ·  Report

    MacBook Air M2 16MB
    Sequoia 15.0
    InDesign 20.0.0.95

    This is my tragic experience recorded, spinning wheel most of the time, almost any operation causes this 5 second delay. I simply cannot use this app for my daily work. The problem occurs even with empty documents!
    As soon as I finish one project started in CC2025, I will uninstall this version.

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/f4a9lu8tqxhk59a/Spinning%20Wheel%202024-10-18%20v%C2%A015.36.42.mov?dl=0

  • nitsch.lorand@curteaveche.ro commented  ·   ·  Report

    What I experienced so far (on a 2018 MacMini with Sequoia): When starting fresh, Indesign 2025 works fine... until something happens - I bet something related to memory usage. For example this can be reproduced every time: when I open a book around 400 pages long and scrolling down on it, at some point the scrolling freezes and after that the beachball appears after every couple of moves - even after I close the file and browsing only thru the Indesign's Preferences. Quiting and restarting Indesign helps... until I guess some cache or buffer becomes full and after that it's beachball-time again...

  • Richard Larson commented  ·   ·  Report

    Okay, here is some more detail on this problem.
    - Beachballing happens upon opening a document
    - Beachballing happens when you scroll from page to page or spread to spread
    - Beachballing happens on EVERY click of the mouse, selection or drag. It happens on all boxes: Text or picture
    - Blinking or screen voiding happens randomly when selecting any box or selecting a line of text. Especially picture boxes or text boxes with tables.
    - Beachballing happens upon opening the INDD program in the home screen-before even opening a document.
    - Beachballing happens when closing a document. It beachballs then goes to a blank progress bar that progresses slightly then disappears.
    - After closing and returning to the Home screen it beachballs again, albeit briefly.

    I have checked the system and it is running satisfactory. INDD 20.0 is the only app thus far on my 3 machines reacting this way.
    - Mac mini: i7 Intel - 32 Gig RAM, 3.2GHz, 6-Core
    - Mac mini: M1 Apple - 16 Gig RAM
    - Mac M2 Laptop - 16 Gig Ram
    All machines running Sequoia 15.0.1

  • Courtney commented  ·   ·  Report

    Just was trying to replicate it, and it doesn't seem to be happening anymore - so I think it is fixed? yeah! (but in case you need the info: Sequoia 15.0.1 / on older documents created in Indesign 2024 / it was happening when trying to scroll through the document and also when I would double click on text to edit it) Thank you!

  • Richard Larson commented  ·   ·  Report

    It's all documents no matter what the size or legacy. Older documents I save to INDD 20.0 right away but even this doesn't help. The slowness happens from the beginning of opening the document. As the program is used the slowness/beachballing on every action seems to get worse until it levels off at it happens with every click or even just the movement of the mouse.

    As stated in my previous comment both machines are running Mac OS Sequoia 15.0.1
    I don't use INDD much on my M2 laptop but will test it this afternoon - also running Mac OS Sequoia 15.0.1.

  • Creative Overlord commented  ·   ·  Report

    Agree, updated to InDesign 20.0 and immediately very, very slow, laggy and buggy. Previous version was snappy with no real issues. I'm talking ball of death after every action, even scrolling or zooming causes stuttering, screen issues with mouse size jumping from big to small, boxes not loading (similar to the pink screen error from a few years ago where the whole design will look blank as you pan around but if you draw a coloured box over the whole thing then delete it, you can see your design again). I also lost custom shortcuts to some but not all menu commands (for example I set one for duplicate spread in place and that disappeared but other shortcuts I had set AFTER that, saved to the same set still worked, I can't even guess why this would be). Also every time I click into an image box and go to resize the image constrain proportions lock turns off again. Previously if I lock it, on one image, it'd stay locked for all images until I unlocked it again. Now, even for the same image it turns back off if I click out then back into the image and go to resize some more. WHY WHYYYYYY.

    (I'm on a Mac Studio M1 Max 64GB Ram on Sequoia 15.0.1)

  • Mr.Coffee News commented  ·   ·  Report

    Beachball **** with Indesign 2025. Slow opening, slow cut, slow copy, slow paste. I didn't find anything else wrong because before going any further I deleted 2025 and good thing I saved 2024 which opens a large file in 8 seconds, copy pastes nearly instantly.

  • Richard Larson commented  ·   ·  Report

    This has also happened to me with Indesign 2025. It happens on the following machines:
    - Mac mini: i7 Intel - 32 Gig RAM, 3.2GHz, 6-Core
    - Mac mini: M1 Apple - 16 Gig RAM,
    Both machines running Sequoia 15.0.1

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