Answered

InDesign Undo history clears itself without user action

Forum|Forum|5 months ago
November 21, 2025
122 replies
74678 views

Undo steps disappear automatically while working.
Undo history resets to ~3 entries without any undo action being triggered.

This happens reproducibly every ~10 seconds.

Preflight is disabled.

Reproducible in:
- new documents
- local files (no cloud documents)
- fresh installs
- multiple machines

Windows 11.
Photoshop is not affected.

please help : (

Bug

Correct answer Harshika Verma

How can you say you don't understand?
We pay for programs that must be tested as stable BEFORE being released. We don't care about constant little innovations; we want STABLE programs that work.
Try to speak like professionals, as you should be.
Please review this and other threads, as we've been working with a program that contains bugs.
We're not grumbling, we're angry.

Hi All,

Thank you for your patience. The team has released a Fix for this issue is now available in the latest InDesign Prerelease build - 21.2.0.27

Please try out this Prerelease build and let us know if it resolves the issue.

If you are not already part of InDesign's Prerelease program and would like to join and try out the latest Prerelease build, please do the following:

* Go to https://adobe.ly/4qUXgUv

* Sign in with your Adobe ID (the Email ID associated with your Adobe account)

* Select ‘Available Programs’

* Find ‘InDesign Prerelease’ and click ‘Join’

* Once you’ve joined, go to the Creative Cloud Desktop Application on your machine, click on 'Apps' in the section on the left

* Select the 'Pre-release' tab – there you will find the InDesign (Prerelease) build

* To check the Build number of the Prerelease build, hover the cursor over the name – you will see the Build number 'v_________'

* Select ‘Install’

Thanks,

Harshika

Show previous replies

W

Will30682734q2pw

Having same problem Here. Windows 11 OS, using V 21.0.2 of indesign. Cleared cache and preferences, did a reinstall, and even rolled back my version to see if it was happening in 2025 version (20.5.1) of the program and nothing seemed to fix it. Not getting any error messages and have plenty of disk space and memory available, it just clears most of my history ever few moments while working in the program. Will be following this post.

Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hello everyone,

I greatly appreciate you bringing this to my attention. I have forwarded the Undo History problem to the product team. Furthermore, I was unable to replicate the issue on my end, so it would be extremely helpful if you could provide a brief screen recording that captures your entire workflow leading up to the point when the history resets. This will assist us in gaining a clearer understanding of the behavior and aid in our investigation.

I will keep the thread updated as soon as I receive feedback from the team. Thank you once more for your patience and for taking the time to report this.

Abhishek

B

bernd_9382Author

hello,

thank you for forwarding this. here's a screen cap: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/pvyq6zasfe3epfpg70lmq/history_vanishes.mp4?rlkey=uytyu4rvgkvqqngs04lmlk2k2&dl=0

i hope this helps!

raniag174812

Participant

Suddenly, I can't Undo more than 2 times.
Can anyone think of why this might be happening?
For me, it was very useful to be able to Undo during design.
The fact that I can't do it more than 2 times has caused me various problems.

I hope for your immediate help

Mike Witherell

Community Expert

Hi raniag,

Just lately, others are reporting the same possible bug:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/indesign-undo-history-clears-itself-without-user...

But I am not reading about a definitive answer yet.

You might try patiently working through 1 or more of the 4 ways to reset InDesign as discussed in this compendium of troubleshooting. Lately, I have sometimes reset InDesign first with method 1; then with method 3; then with method 1 again. Believe it or not, that has gotten InDesign to work ok for me just lately (but that detail is highly anecdotal to my Windows 11 machine; not my macbook pro machine).

For what it is worth, from my shortcut-oriented perspective, I don't use the History panel in favor of Cmd/Ctrl+Z to Undo, and Shift+Cmd/Ctrl+Z to redo. I only mention that as a work-around, however you didn't say whether you are using the History panel or the keyboard shortcuts. Have you tested both?

Mike Witherell

Cheesusmice

Participating Frequently

I'm having the same issue and it does the same with CTRL Z, but you can open the history panel and see it reverting to just a few actions.

I've reset everything and tried other versions, currently back to 20.5 which is also doing this.

Cheesusmice

Participating Frequently

Experiencing the same, windows user. Video attached to show it in action. Screen recording wouldnt capture the history window so had to use phone!

inddhistory.zip

W

Will30682734q2pw

This is exactly what it looks like for me as well.

J

Julius B.

Participating Frequently

Good day,

I am currently using InDesign 21.0.2

I'm working on an HP Victus laptop (i5 12th Gen CPU, Nvidia RTX 4050, 16GB RAM)

I just noticed today that my Undo is limited to only two steps, and while observing the History panel I found out that even though it is recording every action I perform on the document, it will automatically clear itself as soon as I pause working for a second, leaving only the last two actions. I've already updated my display driver, cleared preferences, and restarted my system. After some Googling, one of the most common result is unchecking the GPU Performance in Preferences, but the option is greyed out because it does not detect a compatible GPU and Monitor which after looking further into it, is because I don't have a 2K display apparently. Although, I am not exactly sure if this matter is related to the issue.

May I ask for help resolving this problem, please? Thank you

Mike Witherell

Community Expert

Julius,

Just lately, others are reporting the same possible bug:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/indesign-undo-history-clears-itself-without-user-action/td-p/15631507

But I am not reading about a definitive answer yet.

You might try patiently working through 1 or more of the 4 ways to reset InDesign as discussed in this compendium of troubleshooting. Lately, I have sometimes reset InDesign first with method 1; then with method 3; then with method 1 again. Believe it or not, that has gotten InDesign to work ok for me just lately (but that detail is highly anecdotal to my Windows 11 machine; not my macbook pro machine).

For what it is worth, from my shortcut-oriented perspective, I don't use the History panel in favor of Cmd/Ctrl+Z to Undo, and Shift+Cmd/Ctrl+Z to redo. I only mention that as a work-around.

Mike Witherell

J

Julius B.

Participating Frequently

Mike,

Thanks so much for the response. I’ve been looking around to see if others were experiencing the same issue, mainly in hopes of finding a workaround. It’s reassuring to know I’m not alone, though a bit concerning that there isn’t a definitive fix just yet.

I’ll try out the suggested troubleshooting steps and will report back.

leo.r

Community Expert

It looks like other users have reported a similar issue recently. I can find at least one thread, but I think I saw more:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/multiple-undo-option-has-disappeared-in-indesign-update/m-p/15626639

leo.r

Community Expert

...here's another one:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/indesign-21-0-x64-com-problemas-no-undo/m-p/15590901

They all seem to come from Windows users.

leo.r

Community Expert

...and another one, just a few hours ago:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/befehl-quot-r%C3%BCckg%C3%A4ngig-quot-geht-nicht-mehr/td-p/15631676

...and yet another one:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/indesign-2026-history-problem/td-p/15631383

R

rosarot75

Seit gestern kann ich in Indesign nur mehr einen Schritt zurück gehen. Liegt es an einem Update oder stimmt bei meinem Programm/PC etwas nicht?

leo.r

Community Expert

Seit gestern kann ich in Indesign nur mehr einen Schritt zurück gehen. Liegt es an einem Update oder stimmt bei meinem Programm/PC etwas nicht?

By @rosarot75

Check this thread, as well as other threads linked there:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/indesign-undo-history-clears-itself-without-user-action/td-p/15631507

Also, what are your InDesign and Windows versions, and how much RAM do you have?

Barb Binder

Community Expert

Also, please let us know what version of InDesign, when this started happening (i.e., after upgrading to v21 from v20) and your computer specifications.

Does restarting Windows make a difference?

~Barb

~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training

B

bernd_9382Author

ive tried out different versions. first noticed the bug on 20.5.1 on my laptop. didnt think much of it and just called it a day. next morning i started working on my desktop pc (21.0.1) and noticed the same bug again. since then tried installing older versions. didnt help unfortunately

E

Eugene Tyson

Community Expert

I don't think it's a bug or we would have a flood of similar issues.

Might be something local.

Restart in safe mode and only open indesign and test it.

If its working normally then it's likely a background app, like vpn, firewall, any app really.

If its fine in safe mode then restart in normal mode.

Then see what's running in the background and try to eliminate various apps.

Willi Adelberger

Community Expert

Available undos depend n free RAM and disc space. It can be reduced by other running applications.

J

Julius Krisu

Completely unhelpful comment in this thread - the reported problem is that one day we had endless steps of undo and the next day (with the same & plenty amount of RAM) the history keeps resetting to like 4-5 undos. It's a bug, not a memory issue on the user's side.

H

Houssam37884838cxnz

Bug Confirmation: Undo History Auto-Purge During Idle State

Hello,

I can confirm experiencing the identical issue described in this thread.

System Configuration:

OS: Windows 11 25H2
InDesign versions tested: 21.x and 20.0 (issue persists across both)
Hardware: Adequate RAM allocation, >100GB free disk space

Issue Behavior: Undo stack grows normally during active editing (reaches 15-20 steps), then automatically purges after 30-90 seconds of idle time, reducing to ~8 steps (sometimes 4). This is not a static limit but an idle-triggered memory management behavior.

Troubleshooting Performed (no resolution):

Preferences reset (Ctrl+Alt+Shift on launch)
Complete InDesign uninstall/reinstall
Tested on InDesign 20.0 (downgrade from 21.x)
Verified adequate disk space (>100GB free)
Tested on new documents + local files (non-cloud storage)
Disabled InDesign Recovery folder (%LocalAppData%\Adobe\InDesign\...\InDesign Recovery)
Attempted Windows update rollback

Key Observations:

Issue onset correlates with recent timeframe (was not present months ago)
Reproducible on blank documents
Pattern: active editing → stack grows → idle period → automatic purge
Not a static memory limit but idle-state triggered behavior
Stack purge occurs at application level, not UI refresh issue (confirmed via Ctrl+Z limit)

Technical Hypothesis: Given the correlation with the December 9, 2025 Windows update (KB for 23H2/24H2/25H2) and idle-triggered behavior, this appears to be a conflict between InDesign's undo stack memory management and Windows' modified Virtual Memory Manager or memory compression policies in recent builds.

Available for providing diagnostic logs, memory dumps, or additional testing if needed.

E

Eugene Tyson

Community Expert

Option 1 Reset InDesign Preferences

InDesign 19.3 and newer go to Preferences > General > and click on "Reset Preferences on Quit" and then quit and restart.
Or
Windows: Start InDesign, and then press Shift+Ctrl+Alt. Click Yes when asked if you want to delete preference files.
macOS: While pressing Shift+Option+Command+Control, start InDesign. Click Yes when asked if you want to delete preference files.
A dialog will appear asking to delete the InDesign Preferences, select 'Yes' on this dialog.
More in-depth cleanse of preferences
https://helpx.adobe.com/in/indesign/kb/indesign-preferences-support-file-locations.html

Option 2 Clear InDesign Caches

A corrupted cache can trigger background resets.
Quit InDesign
Go to: C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Adobe\InDesign\Version 21.0\
Mac go to: ~/Library/Caches/Adobe InDesign/
Delete the Caches folder
Relaunch InDesign
(Preferences are left intact with this method.)

Option 3 Clean Reinstall (Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool)

If the issue persists across machines, a deeper cleanup is worth trying.
Uninstall InDesign from Creative Cloud
Download and run Adobe Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool
Remove all InDesign entries
Reboot
Reinstall InDesign

Additional Things Worth Checking

If none of the above help:

Disable third-party plugins (even old ones you don’t actively use)

Turn off background services temporarily:

Windows antivirus / ransomware protection

Cloud sync tools (OneDrive, Dropbox)

If this started recently, roll back via Creative Cloud > Previous Versions

If it survives fresh installs and multiple machines, that points away from user error and toward a software or system-level conflict.

B

bernd_9382Author

thank you for your answer!

my specs:

desktop pc:

intel i7-12700kf (3.6ghz)

16 gb ram

rtx 3060ti

laptop:

intel i7-1165G7 (2.8ghz)

16 gb ram

intel iris xe graphics

heres a list of what has been done:

InDesign-Specific Tests

GPU acceleration disabled
Preferences reset (Ctrl+Alt+Shift on startup)
AppData / cache folders manually deleted
Live Preflight disabled
Preflight profile set to [None]
Dynamic spelling / background text features disabled
Auto-recovery settings checked (only path available in current versions)
CC Libraries closed
No plugins installed
No scripts or startup scripts present
CEP / Extensions folders removed or renamed
Tested with minimal documents (single page, single frame)
Happens with text and non-text workflows
Happens regardless of tool used

Creative Cloud / Adobe Tests

All Adobe applications uninstalled
Adobe Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool used
Creative Cloud reinstalled fresh
InDesign installed as the only Adobe app
No Creative Cloud sync options available to disable
Issue persists after clean CC reinstall

Windows / System Tests

New local Windows user account created
Windows In-Place Repair performed
Graphics drivers updated
Tested with different Windows update states
Touch / handwriting / text services investigated
No clipboard managers, keyboard tools, or automation tools running
Issue persists across systems

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

What is the exact version of Windows 11 are you using?

Are you GPU drivers up to date?

I'm not having any problem with undos.

I'm running Win 11 25H2 KB5072033

i9-13900K (3.00 GHz)

InDesign 21.0.2

NVIDIA Studio driver 591.44 for RTX 4080

128 GB RAM

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

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InDesign-Specific Tests

Creative Cloud / Adobe Tests

Windows / System Tests

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