Ravl marked this as fixed back in January, but it's not fixed. I'm on Windows 11, not Mac, but I'm having the same horrible slowness of 2025 (i.e. 20.x) versions. I'm currently on 20.4. I thought perhaps it was something about my computer (Photoshop 2025 is slow too), until I reinstalled ID 2024 (19.5.4) to work around a different bug (crashing during export as HTML Legacy). 2024 runs just as fast as it always did! I'll use IDML to move my documents back to 2024 and stay there while I wait for a fix.

I'm experiencing a consistent and 100% reproducible freeze in InDesign 2025 (v20.3.1) when performing basic operations such as editing Character Styles or Paragraph Styles panels.

I analyzed the attached stack trace using ChatGPT, which pointed out a potential infinite loop during a click event. Specifically, it mentioned:

The application stalls at UI_DispatchPointerEventToTarget

The hang occurs during a NSAccessibility API call

Out of curiosity, I tried quitting Bartender.app, and surprisingly, InDesign 2025 started working smoothly.

However, InDesign 2024 (v19.5.4) on the same system (macOS Sequoia 15.5, M1 Ultra) runs perfectly without any issue.

This leads me to suspect that there may be a serious regression or issue related to UI event handling or accessibility hooks in InDesign 2025. Has anyone else encountered this?

Apple M1 Macbook Pro running Sequoia 15.3.1
None of the 2025 InDesigns open. I have tried 20, 20.1, and 20.2 -- they all freeze on the "Calling Late Initializers..." screen when the app is opening.
While the 2024 InDesigns do open (I have installed every single one from 19.0 to the most recent version before 20) they immediately beach ball.
IndDesign user for 15 years. I have been trouble shooting this for weeks and am losing work opportunities at this point. Laughably, every Adobe rep I've chatted with has only been able to suggest I reinstall InDesign or Creative Cloud. As if I haven't tried that 20 times already.

The 20.1 update improved improve the situation notably, but it is NOT totally fixed. InDesign is still very sluggish and still will pause between most even small edits on the latest versions, making it very slow to work in.

Maybe Adobe at least release an update to v19 that allows it to open v20 files without converting them, so that users can roll back to v19? I'd use v19 still if not for that, because working with others who use v20 and so I can't edit their files in v19. Converting the files often seems to imperfectly transfer over, or mess up links and fonts, not to mention that I would have to keep converting every time a v20 user hands it off to me.

Even if not the speediest. I miss when InDesign at least ran at a normal usable speed.

"The issue seems to be specific to the MAC devices:"

Not so, you can add M4 Pro MacBook Pro and M1 Max Mac Studio to the list. AND the M4 MBP was a brand new computer with a brand new install of Adobe CC (with no extra software) and it still experienced the horrendous lag. I reported this to Adobe a few days after the release.

Using the most recent version of InDesign and it still is not responding after upgrading Mac OS to Sequoia 15.3.1.

InDesign is not responding after upgrading Mac OS to Sequoia 15.3.1.

I'm still experiencing slow down AND this morning I am stuck on the Hand tool!

I have been experiencing a lot of the problems posted here by fellow users.
InDesign user for 20 years; this is the worst update ever. Please fix these errors in basic functionality.

Back in the 1990s/early 2000s, QuarkXpress was the top dog in publishing and print, and apparently unassailable. But arrogance and complacency set in, they didn't respond to users, and crashed into relative obscurity. An object lesson.

InDesign 20.1 on 2023 iMac Apple M3 8GB OS 15.3

Checking up if 20.1 did the trick. It appears not. Adobe, please throw some gas on this and escalate.

Mac Studio
Chip Apple M1 Max
Memory 64 GB
macOS Sequoia 15.3

When switching between apps back to InDesign – ie: copying text from a browser or word processor and then switching back to InDesign the app takes forever to load. Freezes up, lags, then after a moment works. Using option+tab to flip between windows becomes so clunky. On a fast machine, so this is entirely software related. Very frustrating and interruptive to a workflow.

Still very slow. At every quit, the "Waiting for UXP plugins to finish up remaining tasks." message hangs for several minutes before completely quitting the app.

iMac 19,1
6-Core Intel Core i5 3 GHz
4 GB Radeon Pro 570X
32 GB DDR4 2667 MHz
macOS Sequoia 15.2

InDesign 2025 repeatedly crashes
It all began when upgrading to 2025. Yes I kept 2024 just in case. Had also installed and run the beta InDesign a few times as the only doc I could get was a PDF. However, once finished using the beta I uninstalled it. At the time I loaded 2025 the beta was not installed. The very first time I opened 2025 it immediately crashed so I uninstalled it and went back to using 2024, but whatever the problem is migrated to 2024 and I started having crash problems with 2024.

After that, I went ahead and uninstalled 2024 thinking it might be a conflict problem for some crazy reason but that didn't help. So now I've been using 2025 and every time it crashes I sent the report. When the 2025 updated showed up just recently I was hoping that would fix the issue but it hasn't.

What I've noticed is that the crashes occur on opening the palettes. I have quite a few of them and the first one I noticed that was repeatable was every time I tried to open the CC libraries palette. However, it's also doing it with other palettes, specifically the swatches and pages palette. Also, when trying to grab a page in the palette to move it I get an immediate crash. Recently, it has also begun immediately crashing upon restarting directly after a crash. On the third attempt, it does not crash on reopening 2025.

I have cleared the cache, reset preferences and even uninstalled the application entirely and then reinstalled it but nothing is helping. Indesign has always worked well on my iMac. It was only after installing 2025 that the problems started. As an additional note, I have installed the 2025 versions of Photoshop and Illustrator and they are running with no problems that I have found.

iMac
4.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
Radeon Pro 580 8 GB
64 GB 2400 MHz DDR4
Ventura 13.7.2 (22H313)

I hope this information helps in tracking down the problem.

Where can we find 20.1.0.71. It's not showing in the CC app. Latest version available to me is 20.1.

Thanks

Updated to the official 20.1 version (20.1.0.71), everything seems to be ok.
No lag in switching from software to finder or other softwares, I can finally use the "Document Fonts" folder again without any problems.

Apple M1 ultra
Sonoma 14.7.2

Dear Adobe Support Team,

I’m writing to report ongoing and severe glitches with InDesign 2025. Despite having sufficient space on my computer, closing/reopening the program, deleting old versions, and troubleshooting everything I can think of, the application remains incredibly unstable.

I frequently encounter the spinning wheel or loading bar even when performing basic actions, making the program nearly unusable. This isn’t just my experience—over 10 colleagues I know who upgraded to InDesign 2025 are facing the exact same issues.

Please address this issue urgently. Let me know if there’s a patch or solution in progress.

InDesign 2025 on my Mac Studio has been a nightmare to use. I need to copy text from a word doc to an InDesign file and having them open side by side and flicking from Word to InDesign to paste the text in would literally give me the beach ball for up to 10 seconds... completely destroyed my workflow every time I had to click on the InDesign window! Scrolling causes freezing and glitching, keyboard shortcuts were so laggy. Files that used to have no issue opening now literally cause InDesign to be unresponsive and I have to force quit. Please fix this omg

Has anyone tested it? I'm not sure when I will have time to check it out? Are text functions faster now? I was experiencing a 3 - 4 second delay when just switching from the move tool to the text tool.
aargh!

I've recently updated my Mac from an M1 Max to an M4 Max, and it seems much more unresponsive when flicking between open windows, and also double-clicking to enter into a text box.

Also, tabbing between any windows, from Word, or Safari and back to InDesign is INCREDIBLY slow and unresponsive.

I used to be able to flick pan around using the M1 Max, but now I have to have it in 'Typical Display Performance' rather than the default 'High'.

ALSO TO ADD: I reset prefs and the files, and it seemed initially slightly quicker, but it's sluggish again now

InDesign 2025 is insanely slow compared to other versions. Updating a linked image takes 3 times as long & the program borderline crashes when I open files I previously had no issues with.
Here's an idea: stop bloating the software with stupid AI features that no one wants other than your VC investors. Interrupting workflow is a great way to lose customers, I'm already using Affinity & Clip Studio more often & may switch over completely. I pay almost $700 a year for Adobe software that keeps getting worse. Have had tons of bugs ever since the AI has ramped up in all programs.