Participant

Question

InDesign lags 3-5 seconds when going out then back into the application

Forum|Forum|3 months ago
October 13, 2025
3 replies
269 views

Users have been experiencing an annoying lag with InDesign when they click out then back into the application. I have read on the forums that with Mac, magnet is the cause and quitting it gets rid of it. Unfortunately, we are on Windows 11 and Magnet is not a feature on Windows. I have reached out to Adobe numerous times and they suggest clearing the pasteboard, changing all the possible performance settings, and resetting the InDesign folder in local by changing it to "InDesign_Backup" and then opening InDesign so it creates a new folder which I want to emphasize WORKS for about 3-4 days until the lag comes back and starts to progressivley get worse.

Adobe suggested it may be due to the files being saved on a network drive rather than local. So we tested that and of course it was like night and day and there was no lag, but that is expected as opening any file locally will be way faster, and that doesn't explain why resetting the InDesign folder fixes it temporarily.

We used to use Virtual Machines for InDesign and never experienced this lag until moving to the Dell Precision 5490, which is way more powerful than the Virtual Machines we had running. I also want to note that we are using the latest version of InDesign (version 20.5).

Please help.

Machine Specs:
Dell Precision 5490
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) Ultra 9 185H

Processors: Physical: 16 Logical: 22

GPU: NVIDIA RTX 3000 Ada Generation Laptop GPU
Memory: 64GB of RAM

Performance

J

Jennifer5EBA

Participant

I am having the same issues. Mine is when I want to switch between documents. I have more than a normal wait time when I click on other Indesign documnent tabs, whether they be network or local PC saved documents. It's really impacting my productivity! I have a 2016 Mac laptop that is faster than the new Dell computer without the bloat of all the new AI features in Adobe and other Windows software. My performance was fine before doing updates a month ago!

Bill Silbert

Community Expert

I have found that the most common reason that saving across a network is a problem is a result of the network not having been updated for full compatibility with the latest version of InDesign. Many network administrators delay updating so as not to interfere with virus protection across the network. Try speaking to your network administrator and confirming that the network is indeed fully compatible. If not then updating it could fix the problem.

A

amazing_art2750Author

Participant

Why does resetting the InDesign folder in local solve the lag issue for a few days then? Wouldn't it still lag since it is pulling from the same network drive? We also have always been using network drives and never ran into this issue.

leo.r

Community Expert

We also have always been using network drives and never ran into this issue.

By @amazing_art2750

Do you know when the problem started? For example, can you associate it with the upgrade to InDesign 2025 or to any dot version (20.3, 20.4 etc?)

There was a thread when a user found out that their network-related issues went away when they reverted to InDesign 20.0 (albeit their problems were different). You can revert to an earlier dot version from the Creative Cloud app > InDesign > Other Versions menu.

Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hi @amazing_art2750,

Thanks for sharing all the details. I understand how frustrating that lag can be, especially when everything else on your system runs smoothly. Could you please test the behavior once in Safe Mode and also by creating a new user profile in Windows? This will help isolate whether any third-party process or account-specific setting is contributing to the slowdown. You can refer to these articles for steps: https://adobe.ly/4nODDMR and https://adobe.ly/42F21YG.

If the lag still persists, please confirm whether you're only working with remote or network-stored files, or if the issue occurs even with locally saved ones. If it's only happening with network files, InDesign does support working across networks, removable media, and cloud-synced folders like OneDrive, Dropbox, and Google Drive, but not all configurations or access rights are fully tested. This can sometimes lead to unexpected slowdowns. As a best practice, try working from a local folder, such as your Desktop, and then copy the files back to your network or cloud folder after editing.

It might also help to have your network or local IT team review the network performance logs to check for any sync or permission delays that could be impacting InDesign. Feel free to share your observations after these checks.

I'll be glad to help further based on what you find.

Abhishek

A

amazing_art2750Author

Participant

I want to make mention that this lag is happening outside of files. When they are simply on the home page where they can select Recent files, it still lags when clicking out then back into InDesign. We tried reverting back to an older version and it still lags.

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