InDesign 2020 keeps crashing on macOS Catalina

Hi Paul,

Sorry to hear about your experience. We'll be happy to help. Please try steps given below and let us know if they help:

1. Reset Preferences: - 

• Close all adobe applications 
• Go to Locations:  
• ~/Library/Caches 
• ~/Library/Preferences 
• Rename Adobe InDesign and com.adobe.indesign to Adobe InDesign.old and com.adobe.indesign.old 
• Launch InDesign from the CC 

**Please note that resetting preferences will remove all the custom settings and InDesign will launch with default settings. This way all your old settings will be saved in .old folders and InDesign will recreate new folders with default settings.  

2. If that doesn't help, try booting the system into Safe Mode (https://helpx.adobe.com/in/x-productkb/global/start-safe-boot-mode-mac.html) and check how it works there. It starts your system so that it performs certain checks and prevents third party software/ services from automatically loading or opening. If it works fine in Safe mode, then there is some third party service or application like antivirus, plugins or web extensions which are conflicting with the InDesign. 

3. If that doesn't help either, login to root account (https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT204012). Check how application works there. If it works fine there, then it could be related to permission errors. Follow these steps to repair permission errors: 

• Go to Terminal (Go > Utilities > Terminal.app) 
• Execute the following command on terminal to provide permission: 
  • sudo chmod -R 777 /Users/<user>/Library/Preferences/Adobe InDesign 
  • sudo chmod -R 777 /Users/<user>/Library/Caches/Adobe InDesign 
  • sudo chmod -R 777 /Users/<user>/Library/Application Support 

Hope it helps.

Regards,

Ashutosh