Illustrator 2026 freezing on launch - macOS

Question

Illustrator keeps saying not responding when I try to use.

Every time I open Illustrator, it seems like it’s working normally but as soon as I put mouse pointer on the Illustrator window the pointer changes to a loading cursor and I can’t use it. It’s weird because if I don’t put pointer on the Illustrator window, and use keyboard instead of pointer it works.

I tried to uninstall Illustrator and install it again, adding .old to the adobe illustrator folders in library folder, updated macOS software, and installing old versions of illustrator. None of them worked tho.

It’s been like this for weeks and I need to do some work so please help. I screen recorded what happens when I try to use illustrator.

Bill Silbert · Answer

Try resetting your Illustrator preferences. This will restore the program to its defaults. Hopefully, it will also fix the performance problems that you’re having.

To reset preferences on a Macintosh:

The User Library folder in which Illustrator’s preferences are stored is hidden by default on most Macintoshes. To access it make sure that Illustrator is closed and click on the desktop to launch a Finder Window (Command-N).With this window in column view follow the path User>Home folder (it’s the folder with an icon that looks like a house—it may have the user’s name rather than “Home”) and click on the Home folder. With the Option Key pressed choose Library from the Finder Go Menu. “Library” will now appear within the Home folder. Within the Library folder find the folder called Preferences and within it find the folder called “Adobe Illustrator <Version #> Settings” (earlier versions of Illustrator might just say “Adobe Illustrator”) and the file called “com.adobe.Illustrator.plist” and delete both that folder and that file. When Illustrator is next launched it will create new preference files and the program will be restored to its defaults.

The advantage of manually deleting preference files in this manner is that after you’ve reset up the program (make sure that no document window is open) to your liking, you can create copies of your personalized “mint” preference files (make sure that you quit the program before copying them—that finalizes your customization) and use them in the future to replace any corrupt versions you may need to delete.

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