InDesign Freezes/Spins Beachball EVERY TIME I Place (Cmd+D) or Drag & Drop Images (macOS)

Hi everyone,

I am dealing with a completely workflow-breaking issue on my Mac and I am completely out of ideas. Every time I try to place an image using Cmd + D (Place) or drag and drop any image into InDesign, the app freezes completely (Spinning Beachball) and takes an agonizing amount of time to respond.

Here are my specs:

• InDesign Version:  2024 v21.6

• macOS Version: Version 27.0.1 (26A434)

• Mac Model: Mac mini

To save everyone's time, here is an exhaustive list of the standard troubleshooting steps I have ALREADY TRIED, and absolutely none of them worked:

1. Trashed InDesign Preferences and Caches completely (Using the shortcut on launch and manually deleting the folders).

2. Exported the document to IDML and reopened it.

3. Disabled "GPU Performance" in Preferences.

4. Turned OFF Live Preflight completely.

5. Set Display Performance to "Typical/Fast" and set Live Screen Drawing to "Delayed/Never".

6. Granted InDesign "Full Disk Access" in macOS Privacy & Security settings.

7. Removed all Offline Printers from macOS settings.

8. Tested completely different, lightweight files: Even a tiny, standard JPG downloaded from the web causes the freeze. It is not an issue with heavy PNGs, PSDs, or metadata.

9. Moved files to the local "Downloads" folder to guarantee iCloud/Network sync isn't causing a Finder bottleneck.

The ONLY workaround that works instantly without freezing is copying the image directly from Photoshop (Cmd+C) and pasting it into InDesign (Cmd+V). This proves the machine can handle the graphics instantly, but the Place/Drag workflow is broken. However, pasting is not a real solution as I lose the "Live Link" feature which is essential for my workflow.

This seems like a deep conflict between InDesign and the macOS Finder / Import Dialog. Has anyone experienced this specific stubborn bug recently or knows a hidden system fix?

Any help would be massively appreciated!