Indesign 20 is unusable. I've tried just about every tip and trick I could find on the web. But I still have this bug that makes the software unusable. I've reinstalled version 19.5, which works perfectly.

Please fix this. I pay an expensive subscription but I am not allowed to use the recent version, pathetic.

This issue has been driving me a bit crazy. I am not sure this will help, and I have yet to try this with more samples, but I have one test where I opened a file that would reliably cause the application to slow down while switching in and out between Indesign and any other App. I had only Finder and Indesign running, so it was those two I was switching between for this test. I have a file that has a few Paragraph style that were based on one-another and had been updated along with Indesign over the last several years. In my test, I deleted all paragraph styles and selected keep formatting on all. The slowdown still occurred, but when I closed the document quite and then restarted the app and opened that document the slowdown was improved. InDesign didc lag while opening the document, but this passed and then was gone after that intial few seconds. My next test I will be a bit more systematic and see if I can pinpoint which style is causing the issue. I have had problems in the past with things buried deep down in some style causing a strange issue (iirc, it was inability to delete a particylar color swatch).

InDesign 20.0.1 is slow to switch back to the front application when copying and pasting into InDesign 2025 is slow on my M1 Max MacBook Pro. Switching back and forth from Workfront Proof, Word, Excel, or any application is slow as InDesign takes a full 1 to 2 seconds to come to the front by clicking on the document window or using the application switcher.

Please remove this annoying delay.

Thank you.

This is truly unworkable.
Incredibly sluggish, spinning beachballs and crashes.

And as if being productive wasn't enough of a struggle, we also have to deal with the horribly annoying popups that we can't turn off and that keep coming back over and over again.

You don't wan't to know how many (unbillable) hours are wasted just staring at a spinning beachball, or resetting preferences.

Same story here. Recently upgraded to InDesign 2025, now in every document ANY action causes the beach ball with a huge pause in workflow. Totally unworkable.

2019 Macbook pro, running Sequoia 15.1

[today 4/12/24]
Since 20.0 versio , InDesign is extremely slooooowww, almost unusable. Almost every action from selecting objects, resizing objects, or moving objects comes with a really slow reaction time.

It seems to happen on my machine after I open FontAgent which automatically "opens at login". So I have to open System Settings and delete it from "opens at login" which seems to fix the problem.

UPDATE - sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. Ugh.

Unusable. I thought beach balls were a distant memory now, with all the processor advances in later years.. Now I see them in ID 25 doing any small action. Vibes of old PageMaker – maybe time is now ripe for a total re-write of the whole application? ID seems awfully creaky.

There's plenty of people referencing to the stuttering issues on Reddit, it seems to be exclusive to Macs, but I might be wrong.

https://www.reddit.com/r/indesign/comments/1g4vtwa/indesign_stutters_after_updating_to_2025/

https://www.reddit.com/r/indesign/comments/1h27jeo/indesign_2025_slow_and_buggy/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Adobe/comments/1g9w4j2/adobe_indesign_2025_slow_and_laggy/

https://www.reddit.com/r/indesign/comments/1guscm1/indesign_2025_is_horribly_slow/

The 1 key issue is kind of mad though, haven't ever seen anything like it. In hindsight, it might have been native to the file I was working on at the time, the person who built it has a habit of doing weird stuff when building documents. Either way, the stuttering/freezing is a much bigger issue.

I ended up reverting to InDesign 2024 because 2025 is such a mess. Hopefully, the stuttering/freeezing gets patched out soon. I don't like upgrading this early, but someone at my agency jumped the gun forcing everyone else to upgrade for file compatibility.

This issue is not limited to Mac. We are having it across our entire team - a delay of up to 3 seconds when switching between programs. This is a HUGE issue for productivity that caused my team to downgrade back to 2024. I keep coming back here hoping there is a fix, but I don't see it being taken as seriously as it should be.

This is a huge issue for my entire team. Please let us know if you are working on this.

This is a HUGE issue. Please take the numerous comments on this lag seriously!

I haven't experienced any of the issues you mentioned (granted I'm on Windows 11 but many of my colleagues are on Mac OS and aren't having any issues), and I work in an environment with strict IT protections, multiple servers, and a host of background applications. I wish I could offer better advice but know that the problem might be isolated and/or related to your system settings.

This is the worst update to InDesign I've ever experienced.

I'm about 15 years deep into my design career now, and this is the first time InDesign has been straight-up unusable. I've had to revert back to 2024 as it's impossible to work with 2025.

The issues are constant stuttering, scroll a little it freezes, select text it freezes, move anything it freezes. These little freezes add up and make it impossible to get into a good workflow.

I was happy to see there was an update recently and thought it would fix my problem, it only added to them. Now my 1 key no longer inputs the number 1 but it bolds the text instead, I have to copy and paste 1 from another app now.

I've uninstalled CC, and reinstalled it, I've updated my Mac OS and I've even done a complete wipe of CC, all preferences/cache/relevant system files with a fresh install. These bugs are still there.

How did this product even get signed off? This has massively impacted my work flow, and is absolutely inexcusable for a service with such a high price tag.

Sort it out Adobe, this isn't acceptable.

Shocker that a XX.0 and XX.0.1 have fundamental issues. This is another reason why we continue to use Affinity Publisher more than InDesign these days. We have a poster on the wall of a decision tree that boils down to: If you want to make cat memes then download the latest Adobe software—it might get the job done. If you must create professional materials with fundamental tools that have been a staple to the industry for years, use something else.

It's kind of like Harbor Freight tools vs. trusted name-brand tools. When you need to fix something and don't need to worry if the tool will ever work again after the first project, get it from Harbor Freight. If you need it to work more than twice, go with something else.

Unfortunately, with Adobe, you don't get what you pay for. Several other options are available for a cheaper price that just work.

Same issues here on a Mac mini 2018 i7, 64GB ram with an amd radeon 6800 16GB egpu. By accident I had Activity monitor open on the gpu tab. I clicked on Indesign and it showed the internal Intel gpu. That was weird, as in Indesign in the GPU performance showed the AMD card. I closed Indesign, right clicked on the app, and chose "prefer external gpu". Lo and behold after opening Indesign in Activity monitor was really running on the AMD now. And the performance in app was like it should be.

Unfortunately, the latest update did not resolve the delays occurring when switching between tools and functions.

I am working on an Apple Silicon Mac Studio with the M2 chip, 64 GB of memory, and a 2 TB internal SSD. My system is running macOS Sonoma 15.1.1 (24B91).

Even with a trivial task, such as switching between a text box (T) and the object itself (V), there is a delay of about half a second. I have never experienced anything like this, not even on my old MacBook Pro with an Intel chip running older Adobe CS versions. I must say that such performance is completely unusable for normal, everyday work.

When comparing the response speed to the latest Illustrator, the difference is staggering. Illustrator reacts instantly, as it should, without any delays.

I don’t understand what has been done to the latest versions of InDesign, but working on any document in this software has become unbearable, unsustainable, and, most importantly, impossible in the long term.

To clarify, I have uninstalled and reinstalled InDesign twice, cleared the cache, and reset preferences. The issue persists, and I am convinced the problem lies in the code.

I kindly ask for your advice or a fix as soon as possible.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Hi guys,
i'm using Dropbox and have noticed activity when the beachball starts spinning in InDesign. I've all files on my HDD and i'm only mirroring them on Dropbox for backup purposes. Maybe there's a connection or it has something to do with autosave in InDesign? Hope that helps—it really gets annoying ...
Cheers from Vienna, Benjamin

Having same issues. Seems related to switching away from the application and going back. I have tried many solutions listed and it will work well until I switch and then the issues begin. Really just 100% unusable at that point.