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?

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[wotUwant]

Thanks. Yes that is what I have done for now. It seems like Adobe has released the 2025 update without fully testing. 

[Ranessa]

Totally agree. I don’t have time to set there while the bouncy ball is spinning.
Sent from my iPhone

[HD Schellnack]

Just a small update here: As 2025 auto-installed on my MBP I had to work with it there and it seemed for a while as if it would work. But after about 10 Minutes, the same problems arose on this machine as well. So it seems to be a bit of a general problem with preferences corruptiion or whatever....?

Also – as a side note here. I get that in the days of yearly Updates Indesign used the non-compatibility of their files as a pressure point to force users into an upgrade, if you got a newer file, you could not open it in the previous-year-version and so had to buy the Upgrade. That was annoying enough, but I do not nearly understand why with CC and a subscription-based model that we ALL as users are tied into, the 2025 files do not just natively open in 2024 and even the «user profile» export from 20 will not open in 19. While PSD and AI do work with prior versions. This really would make life easier than depending on IDML-files (and thank the lord for them!)...  

AI will not save Indesign, but editorial-design-centred new features and very good round of killing the various, years-old bugs would be a great solution. 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@HD Schellnack

But 2024 "opens" files saved in 2025 - you should get a message in 2024 about file being from 2025 and a question if you want Adobe to convert it for you.

[HD Schellnack]

Sorry, but I did get an error message telling me to save as IDML (which is no problem and ANY kind of conversion makes me nervous with this kind of document ;-)) ...  am I doing this wrong? 

[HD Schellnack]

Update: Ah, I see, the conversion comes after the Error-Message. I never got this far and just cancelled. And takes quite a while, it seems, IDML-roundtrip seems almost faster. AND the concverted version has problems with the textflow, it differs a bit from what the 2025 version looks like and killed the layout (which is not the case with IDML, thankfully) Still, great to see at last a hint of progress on that front, much appreciated. 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@HD Schellnack 

Maybe on a Mac it's differrent, but on a PC:

[Jerry31957849ariv]

Same for me. Uninstalled immediately

[Ranessa]

Everything is working perfect just as soon as I uninstalled.

They need to fix.

Glad I’m not the only one complaining.

🙂

[defaulte1mh5hez2ltc]

I've also had this exact issue, have not found a solve for it but you're not alone. Resetting preferences does help but only for a very short time before the beach ball is back on every click. Anything typography related seems to have the worst lag. 

[olivery83416487]

I had the same issues and went back to the previous version. Oddly my coworkers have no issue at all w/ ID2025. The only difference we can think of is that I'm the only one currently on Sequoia (they are still on the Sonoma).

[Nikki26325086ozb7]

Glad to know I'm not alone. I have went back to the earlier version as well. 

[wotUwant]

19 days since I joined/contributed to this discussion, I would like to know if anyone from the Adobe InDesign team are aware of this issue, there was a bug in the new Illustrator and it was sorted in a day with the 29.0.1 fix - There has been a large amount of professional discussion and important feedback for Adobe here, but it seems to have fallen on deaf ears. I am still working in the previous version and it is working fine - 2025 InDesign is still on 20.0.  Any ideas anyone?

[Ricardo281378713tcu]

From the looks of this post, it seems that only 1% of the stuff that gets said here actually goes up on the ladder and eventually to the team responsible. As someone said earlier, Id is not something that gets a lot of attention, so I guess development on this is much slower that in something like Ai, that has all the AI gimmicks, which probably require a lot more devs.

I would expect an update maybe at the end of this month, after 30 or some days of the initial 20.0 release.

[wotUwant]

Yes I agree, and the AI extras they keep adding aren't added value in my opinion either. I use InDesign probably about 60% of my working day - pretty important that it works. 

[Ranessa]

Totally agree. I use Indesign all day long so think they need to get this fixed or I guess I stay in 2024 version. It works perfectly.

🙂

[thomas schweiger]

I could not agree more, and I am still working with the 2024 version of inDesign. Sadly, it feels like I am beta testing inDesign 2025 - I know that "early adoption" is not recommended in a production environment, but I am still paying the full amount of money every month for software that should be working fine - even on macOS Sequoia …;-)

[wotUwant]

I totally agree with this, especially the part about beta testing, and trying out early was definitely a mistake, however I think that a month in is not early adoption now, (still 20.0) Adobe should have sorted this or at the very least given instructions to the many Mac users that they are aware of the issue - I expect there will be many more InDesign users experiencing this by now.

[hnks14]

Unfortuntaely, i was in the middle of a deadline submission for a launch when indesign just randomly deleted pages from my file and i was left in a state of panic. After i downgraded the .indd file was not compatible with 2024 version. That was the first day of the update. I somehow made a backup on a cloud storage to restore my lost data. (which took 2 days over the weekend). I Did contact support but they couldn't help. I guess only an update can say the day next time. 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@hnks14

Can you export IDML from 2025?

Or you should get a warning from 2024 and a question if you want Adobe to convert it for you "in the background". 

[Ranessa]

I don’t know. I uninstalled all of 2025 almost as quickly as I had installed it.

Good luck.

[hnks14]

I would advise to stay on 2024 version. Indesign 2025 has serious issues when it comes to export or even when you open the file again. the links are missing everytime. Same with Illustrator even on the new update. 

[olivery83416487]

New update just released. Haven't had a chance to download and try just yet but haven't seen anyone report anything new either.

[camwork]

Have still the same problems. It's super slow!

[dotargraphichouse]

hi, same issues here for 3 months.

I bought a new computer because of this problem. maybe I said m2 air is so slow. i switched to m4 mac mini pro 24 ram. the problem is still the same.

is anyone working on this problem, is it adobe or macos side?

while other adobe programs run smoothly, indegin is killing me and unfortunately I have to use it every day unfortunately.

we haven't found a workable solution yet, have we?

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