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Known Participant
Jan 11, 2026 5:38 AM UTC
Question

InDesign launches in background - macOS 26

This is an odd one, I double click on an indesign file, indesign and the file opens up but indesign goes to the background on my Mac, and the finder to the foreground then the Mac doc appears and stays there, I have to then click on the indesign layout to bring it to the front, the doc still stays until I click on something else on the doc then it disappears. This started when an agency sent me a brochure to work on and now it is happening with every file I open. I have searched and not found anyone with the same problem. So far I have deleted the Indesign preferences and that didn't fix it, then updated to the latest indesign and that didn't work either. Both illustrator and photoshop are working great. I would be grateful for any advice. Thank you. My set up is: Mac Studio 2023, 64GB ram, Sequoia 15.7.1, Indesign 2026.

13 replies

Jan 15, 2026 4:01 PM UTC

Same issue here. I'm on an Intel iMac running Tahoe 26.2 and InDesign 2026 v21.1. I installed the last InDesign update 23 days ago, but I didn't notice this issue until last week, so I'm not sure if it's related to the update itself.

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Anubhav M
Community Manager
Community Manager
Jan 15, 2026 10:49 PM UTC

Hello @Acorn Printing Prepress,

I'm sorry to hear you're having similar trouble with InDesign. Could you try running InDesign under a different administrator account (macOS) and checking if it helps?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Anubhav

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Mike Witherell
Community Expert
Community Expert
Jan 11, 2026 2:42 PM UTC

Hi Gray,

Maybe you could try updating your macOS Sequoia to version 15.7.3 and see if you still have this odd behavior?

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Mike Witherell
Known Participant
Jan 11, 2026 9:34 PM UTC

Hi Mike, I just did the upgrade and the issue is still the same unfortuately.

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Participating Frequently
Jan 12, 2026 8:54 AM UTC

Same here on Tahoe 26.2

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