Indesign CC 2018 uses up all my i mac memory in minutes

[richarde76253000]

Urgent help required please !!! I have a 2011 imac i7 3.4mhz quad core with 20 GB of 1333MHz DDR3 Ram. I've been using Indesign regularly with no issues until recently where after about 10 -15 mins of use it has gobbled up all the RAM on my Mac. I can see it draining the memory on the activity monitor while i'm just doing basic tasks like moving a picture box or changing type weights. I am running the latest indesign 2018 and have just installed the latest operating system update to see if this would fix the problem but with no joy. I am just experiencing this problem with indesign only.

Does anyone know what the cause of this is and help me identify how to fix the problem.

Many thanks.

[Mike Witherell]

Have you tried resetting the preferences?

Here are many more tips and tricks:

InDesign CC 2018 troubleshooting how-to guide

[richarde76253000 · Accepted solution]

Hi Michael, thank you for your suggestion.

I have reset the preferences as a precaution but I have now got to the bottom of the problem.

It appears the Indesign file I was using was the cause, and on closer inspection it was the images i was importing into the document.

They were screen shots taken from a Firefox app that allows you to capture the entire page of a website. I was collecting a load for mood boards. I will have to use a different app in the future.

Thanks again for sending the trouble shooting guide.

[rob day]

They were screen shots taken from a Firefox app that allows you to capture the entire page of a website.

Even a full screen capture wouldn't make a particularly large image—your iMac would capture 2560x1440 px.

Are you by any chance embedding or pasting the captures? If you are, save the captures and place them. Placed files are linked and the display is a compressed proxy.

[richarde76253000]

Hi Rob,

I'm capturing the files from a firefox app that saves then to a folder as png's. I'm then importing them into indesign as normal.

Yes I agree they are not large images and it's never been an issue in indesign before. All I can tell you is that all my other indesign files work fine with no troubles.

I even tried copying and pasting the imported png's into a new indesign file, thinking the file itself was corrupt. But again the same problem occurred with the RAM being chewed up again. Then when I deleted the pages those imported png's were on, the problem stopped. Weird.

[rob day]

I'm capturing the files from a firefox app that saves then to a folder as png's

It may be that the app is including metadata or file info with pngs that is bloating the ID file—if you place images containing meta data the data gets added to the ID file. You could try resaving the pngs from Photoshop before you place. What does the app get you that a regular screen capture doesn't?