Help! I can no longer move color swatches in InDesign.

[RossM1982]

Problem: I can no longer change the order of color swatches in InDesign. I cannot click them with the mouse, wait for the cursor to change to a white hand(?) and drag and drop them up or down into a new order. I cannot change the order in any way. I cannot move them in any way. I cannot move them out of folders.

What I've done: I've reset my preferences, restarted InDesign and Creative Cloud, and finally reinstalled InDesign. Nothing works.

Operating system: Macbook Pro M2 Max. 

This is so frustrating. I'm hoping someone can tell me what's up with this.

[Bill Silbert]

I assume that this is happening within the Swatches Panel so it might just be that the Panel itself is having issues. Issues within panels can be fixed by trashing your InDesign cache files. This is not the same as deleting preferences.

To do so on a Mac:

The User Library folder in which InDesign’s cache files are stored is hidden by default on most Macintoshes. To access it make sure that InDesign 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 “Caches” folder. Within the Caches folder find and delete the entire folder “Adobe InDesign”. I find that deleting the InDesign cache folder completely leads to a lasting change.

[RossM1982]

Hey thanks, I did not know this. I will try this tomorrow.

[RossM1982]

Okay, this did not work. I'm sorry. To be clear: Assume I have a document open in InDesign. I select a group of text and now wish to change the color of that text. I select the text swatch list (the colored "T") and, while that panel is open, I can see the default swatches as well as any I may have added. In addition, there may be swatches from the color selection tool. When I mouse over a color, and pause, the mouse changes to the white hand or fist or whatever. Prior to installing InDesign on this MacBook Pro M2, I could drag and drop (e.g. reorganize) the swatch list from here. Now when I have a swatch selected and try to move it, I get the "error" sound that InDesign makes and nothing happens.

[Pomodu]

Bump.  Im having this same issue.  Can no longer drag color swatches into a preferred order.  The white hand appears but nothing moves.

[Steve Werner · Accepted solution]

I'd try the solution @Bill Silbert gave above. Try restoring your InDesign preferences and caches. Here's how:

Adobe InDesign: Rebuilding Preferences and Cache FilesRocky Mountain Traininghttps://www.rockymounta...