InDesign 2025 Lagging on MacBook Air with M3 Chip

[krzysiekt44191413]

Something terrible happened after InDesign upgrade to 2025 version, MacOS's spinning beach ball spins every time the cursor moves, and InDesign is lagging soooo badly (I work on MBA 15” M3, RAM 24GB, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1). Have you experienced something like this? Is there any solution for this?

<Title renamed by MOD>

[Eugene Tyson]

How much did you spend on the Mac? 

Not being bad - but this comes up every time Mac release a new OS and it co-incides with a new release of InDesign. 

I feel Apple should take some responsibility too. 

I'm a bit confused, have you ruled out it working in Safe Mode or not? It's only a check to see.I'm not suggesting you work Safe Mode full time. 

If clearing out preferences works for a period - then something must be happening to make them go wonky again.

I'd suggest using the Creative Cloud Cleaner tool

Reinstalling rarely fixes everything - you can do a complete reinstall using the
Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/cc-cleaner-tool-installation-problems.html

[HD Schellnack]

Why should Apple take responsibility, when a new version of a software does not work on their OS when the previous version just works perfectly? 

Working in Safe Mode just for Indesign is not an option in my daily work, it's just not feasible. Working with 2024 until Adobe fixes this, is. 

Reinstalling was referring to ID19, which I auto-uninstalled. Because, most tools, when they update, work. I just upgraded to TopazPhoto 3.3.0 and it just works, as most Apps these days do. (Except banking software and anything from Microsoft, that is). 

Plus, it is not the new OS. Sequoia works just fine with ID 19, so it is not Cupertino at fault here :D. Plus, the Betas of Sequoia have been out for months now, it is due dilligence to text a new release with those betas and see if problems arise. And man, this is Apple – it is the EASY part of making things work, as their hardware is limited. You have Silicon, you have a rest of Intel-based systems, you have a very limited range of graphic cards and super-restrictive system in terms of what background stuff can be installed. It's the best ecosphere to test against. if this makes trouble, I cannot imagine making it work on Windows ;-). 

[Eugene Tyson]

As I've said, and just want to clarify:
I wasn’t suggesting working in safe-mode full time, but simply testing it to see if InDesign runs without issues.

This is a standard troubleshooting step to help determine whether the issue is with InDesign or something else. Since it’s a new OS, it’s possible there are some unexpected interactions happening with the software.

I understand your frustration with Adobe, but focusing on that may not help solve the current problem. Many users are running the software without any issues, so it's worth trying these methods to pinpoint what might be going on in your setup.

If you’re not able to try the suggestions shared here, unfortunately, there’s not much more I can do to assist.

I wish you the best of luck in getting it sorted!

[HD Schellnack]

Hey Eugene, no worries. I started in Safe Mode, of course. And it runs a ... bit... better. Of course, as this is basicaly the bare-bones installation that Adobe (I hope) has tested. Something, some kext or driver or whatever, must interfere. As SafeMode mostly means that Fonts aren't used I guess that might be the culprit. 

I am not so much frustrated with Adobe as would wish that the company, which is producing software that is not only astounding on many levels but the very basis of my work and income, these are my daily tools, is not burning and working hard to make InDesign as good as it could and should be from Adobe. It's treated like the ugly stepchild – and being one of the original Adobe-Apps. it would be so cool if the comapny realized the massive potential here. That is not so much frustration as, you know, wishing that Apple would finally give the iPad the OS the hardware deserves ;-). 
Many many thanks for your input, but basically I have to wait until 2025 works in non-safe mode :-D. 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@HD Schellnack

Can't you switch to Windows? 

It's just a tool, right? 

[HD Schellnack]

😄
To take the kind of passive-aggressive joke seriously: We worked on Windows for about 15 years, in the early years of DTP and Postscript no fun in many ways, but the platform, was much better until a) Vista came along and b) OSX and the new Apple hardware post the first aluminum iMacs. I had a monster-core Xeon, 8x RAID, 64 GB which back then was absurd, the IT guy basically sleeping under a fragile workstation that made problems with every new driver due to the fickle hardware :-D, and when one of my team asked for a Mac 'coz she was used to it I found myself working on her iMac on the weekends to check the shiny new hardware and found myself using it more often, coz it was faster than my workstation and the interface was more fun, writing PDF was better, all in one AIO-desktop-device that was basically silent. few months later I threw all the black Windows-Boxes in the trash, got a MacPro and six iMacs and we switched and never looked back. Despite all the ways Apple isn't perfect, nothing will bring me back to Microsoft. I shudder when I have to use Teams or Word, a 2 GB software that cannot even use the fonts you installed locally. :-D. 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@HD Schellnack

I think it's much better now - I'm working on a 5(?) years old laptop - and I have ZERO problems - I have CS5.5, CS6, CC2023, CC2024 installed - and with only 16GB of RAM and swap off.

No problems at all. But I'm keeping it clean - only Adobe CS / CC and VB6 for my ID-Tasker. 

There is also "the beast" - 40x cores and 512GB RAM 😉 

[HD Schellnack]

I never had problems with CC on my Wintels, but with the OS itself, with the hardware. The main thing with Apple is teh ecosphere, the ease of use, things that Windows did not offer, and still does not offer today in many aspects. I've recently worked a bit with Win10 on a HP AIO and spent a few hours on a Surface «pad» and that did not motivate me to look at MS, even if as a consumer I find Apple a bit stagnant and conservative (which is par for the course when you are the biggest IT company in the world and «computers» aren't even your main product anymore, toppded by «services» :-).)

[leo.r]

By @HD Schellnack

try to create a clean new user account in System Settings > Users & Groups and work from there. Will it make a difference?

[HD Schellnack]

Uff... I could probably do that, but let's be honest here: It will work. It recreates the clean driverless setup you have in Safe Mode, so chances are, it will work. But as soon as I start re-installing the various tools, fonts, drivers, kexts, Apps and so on, it will be back to square one probably (and I will have lost three or four days of real working time, which is not quite realistic, especially not considering that the Adobe family with all of its various beautifuly hidden settings and files (profiles, color-space-setting, individual keyboard settings, workspaces, basic settings and so on) is still what eats up the most time when setting up a new Mac ;-))
As the problem also pops up on the two machines that have rather basic OS setups and regarding that 2024 ran just fine, I think that starting my entire OS over from scratch is not the real option here. If I can do anything to pinpoint the problem and the troublemaking software, I am super willing to help. But the benefits of 2025 (which to me are basically nil) do not make up for the brutal trouble of setting the Studio. 

I realize you are trying to help, but this is just not an option. Just imagine your robo-vacuum doesn't work anymore after a frmware upgrade & support tells you: «Yeah, but what if you took all of your furniture OUT of the living room, will it stop bumping into the table then?» 

I for my part wll go back to ID19 and wait for upgrades and check in from time to time, if 20 will run on my system. I guess it will in some weeks. 

Many, many thanks for helping me out, Leo!

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

[...] But as soon as I start re-installing the various tools, fonts, drivers, kexts, Apps and so on, it will be back to square one probably [...] 

By @HD Schellnack

If you won't try - you won't know for sure - maybe one of those extras is the problem? 

But if you don't really need to switch to the "latest & greatest" - then you are right - no point in wasting your time. 

As you've said earlier - Macs are extremely "simple" in terms of possible hard & software configurations - so Adobe should be able to test everything before releasing paid product...

[HD Schellnack]

I do not know, what a community expert ist, but the passive-aggressive sound is making me a bit sad. I hope you can understand that under running conditions I simply do not have four days to reinstall a running, complex MacStudio just to see if a software I pay a monthly fee for may run :-D. It will and as soon as the complexity of the installed other applications reaches a certain point it won't. 

I will gladly send logs, console-recordings, anything, to help the Adobe team find bugs. But please understand that I just cannot do a clean install just to get a layout software running, when the previous version of said software does the job. It is Adobes job to see to that, not mine. When I can help, I will gladly do so. I will send you a list of my devices, kexts, startup drivers and so on. Anything to help, but this is not the kind of situation where I trash my system from scratch, really sorry. 

Plus: I DO love the new and shiny stuff I use Indesign since the very first Alpha version. I was an early Affinity beta tester, I am the kind of fool that tests the Apple Betas despite knowing better (and just got a new iPad Mini, as iOS18 beta killed the SoC), I am an early adopter. And if need be and I have to DFU my iPad or something bc a beta grilled the system, that happens (this is what we have backups for). 

But this is not a Beta. This is official new version. And of course it is some driver or whatever messing it up. I would bet it has something to do with fonts. And it should run on any system that 2024 runs on, and as some other people seem to have the same problem with a paid monthly subscription, for a software that has stopped working with Pantone, that will soon stop working with Type1-fonts, thus making all older files and working for clients that still use Type1 (and some of them do) as corporate fonts a terrible, terrible problem... maybe it's time to put some devs on InDesign or just giving up on print layout alltogether in order to compete with OpenAI and Flux (and yeah, good luck with that :-)). 

No harm meant, I am a very early ambassador for InDesign and have told clients and design schools still working with Quark in the very early aughts that they should and must switch, I really love ID, as do many people using it. And because of that it is a bit sad to see what is happening with it 😉

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

I do not know, what a community expert ist, but the passive-aggressive sound is making me a bit sad. [...]😉

By @HD Schellnack

I'm sorry, if you've received my comment in a negative way - it was just a suggestion - without any bad intentions.

Yes, the software is too expensive for users to be "beta testers".

[leo.r]

Uff... I could probably do that, but let's be honest here: It will work. It recreates the clean driverless setup you have in Safe Mode, so chances are, it will work. But as soon as I start re-installing the various tools, fonts, drivers, kexts, Apps and so on, it will be back to square one probably (and I will have lost three or four days

By @HD Schellnack

I understand your concern. 

However, it might as well not make a difference. You're not the only one having this issue with InDesign 2025. In fact, a couple days ago I suggested the same test of creating a new user account to someone else on a different forum. It didn't make a difference: InDesign was still lagging. 

My suggestion is to do a test that will take 10-15 minutes. Create a new account and try to use InDesign 2025 there (no need to install or uninstall anything). If InDesign is still slow, then you (and all of us) will know it's clearly a 2025 problem. 

If InDesign 2025 is not lagging on a clean new account, then it's also important info. Obviously, you don't have to do anything about it. I'd say it's still an InDesign 2025 problem, as it should work just as well as 2024 on your existing setup.

As a result, we will all learn more about the nature of the issue without you having to spend any considerable effort.

[HD Schellnack]

I can try to do that, but creating a new account takes a bit more than 19—15 and should bring mostly the same results as SafeMode, as it kicks out most of the third-party stuff). 

[Ricardo281378713tcu]

It seems that this problem is happening in other Adobe products also, not just InDesign: https://community.adobe.com/t5/illustrator-discussions/huge-lag-in-the-latest-version-of-adobe-illus...

[Annie Kitchen]

I agree with you. When I deleted preferences, the lag stopped. But the next day the lag came back. It definitely is something with the 2025 version (20.0.1).

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

I had to open some file today - created in the latest version - and got this:

Looking at the number of posts with complains...

[Laubender]

@Robert at ID-Tasker said: "… I had to open some file today - created in the latest version - and got this: "

Hi Robert,

do you see this message "Converting …" with the release version of InDesign 2025 version 20.0.0.95 ?

If yes, maybe the file was created in a previous Prerelease or Beta version of InDesign with a feature set that does not match the actual release version?

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Laubender

That's not the point of the screenshot 😉

[Laubender]

Well, Robert, I see.

The "subtle pressing" of InDesign users who still working with older versions to update to the latest and greatest InDesign 2025. I get it. Something we can only recommend for testing things out and not for production work.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

[HD Schellnack]

So, officially, Adobe says that when you release a new version of a paid software, users should not update. But «test» things (on what, a mirror of their own system on a second machine?). If so, maybe there should be more of a beta phase. If it is released, it should be possible and recommended for most users to actually use it instead of «HEY, we got a new software out – so great, you can now do stuff you already have done in PS last year!!! But please don't ACTUALLY upgrade, folks» :-D. 

We're all living in a constant beta world now... 

[Laubender]

@HD Schellnack said: "So, officially, Adobe says that when you release a new version of a paid software, users should not update. But «test» things (on what, a mirror of their own system on a second machine?)."

Hi @HD Schellnack ,

that's my personal view, from my 20+ years of using InDesign on Macs or Windows machines:

Never use a newer version for actual production until you tested all things relevant to you. Do not switch horses from the previous version to the latest as soon as the new version is out.

I did not suggest to not install the newer version.

You can run several versions of InDesign side by side on the same machine.

Currently I have installed InDesign 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 on my MacBook Pro.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Laubender

I was referring to "stability improvements".

[Ranessa]

I am having the same problem as well.  I have an M3 Pro and am a graphic artist.  Taking tons of time to do my work while I'm waiting on the spinning ball to quit.  Has anyone solved this problem?