Severe lag in Adobe XD on macOS Tahoe 26.1 (started suddenly, not after OS update)

Report · Nov 18, 2025

Hi everyone,

I’m running into a serious performance issue with Adobe XD on macOS Tahoe 26.1 (Mac Studio M1 Max).
XD becomes extremely slow and unusable immediately after launching — UI lags, canvas interaction is delayed, and even moving the viewport is almost impossible. All other Adobe apps (AI, PS, ID) run completely fine.

What’s important:
The issue did NOT start right after updating macOS. It appeared 3 days later, without any system changes or new software installed.

What I already tried (none of this helped):

full reinstall of Adobe XD
deleting all Adobe XD caches + plist files
trying to launch XD with GPU disabled (via Terminal arguments)
validating all system fonts (no problematic fonts found)
restarting Mac

Additional info:

The lag happens even with a brand new empty XD file.
It happens immediately when the app loads, before opening any document.
Library syncing is on.
No CPU spikes, no excessive RAM usage, but the UI thread seems blocked.
All Adobe apps except XD run perfectly smoothly.

Question:

Has anyone experienced this sudden performance degradation of Adobe XD on macOS Tahoe?
Is there a known workaround (GPU layer fallback, cache location reset, CoreSync rebuild, font index reset, system-level flag, etc.) that could fix this?

I rely on XD daily for UI work, so any guidance or diagnose steps would be highly appreciated.

Thank you in advance,
J. Cink

Report · Dec 05, 2025

Yes, I have experienced this as well. Particularly, if I go to "file" > "Open Recent" I will always get the beach ball. It's almost unusable. I have to be very stretegic about how to open files, just to ensure that it works.