InDesign workspace window is off screen

[Merrijane]

I was using InDesign at work with my laptop connected to my fancy new superwide monitor. Then I came home and tried to open the same files on my laptop without the superwide monitor. The workspace windows are apparently opening up offscreen where I can't see or grab them. I've tried changing the resolution, but can't go small enough to pull the windows into view. I've done a lot of searches on the topic but nothing seems to help or reset the windows and all the solutions provided are from at least a year ago. Any other suggestions?

[Moving from generic Start/Help forum to the specific Program forum... Mod]
[To find a forum for your program please start at https://community.adobe.com/]

[jenniferb7698875]

In your Apple Menu (top) > System Preferences > Dock & Menu Bar:

Menu Bar: Uncheck "Automatically hide and show the menu bar on desktop"
Resize the indd window
*Re-Check "Automatically hide and show the menu bar on desktop" in System Preferences if you choose.

[deemwhy]

Thanks, worked perfectly.

[Drew-Kinney]

I get this periodically. I have a two monitor setup. It happens when I move a wondwo from one monitor to the other nd the menubat get stuck under the mac os menu. You can barely see the document tab.

Here's the solution:
 1) Turn on mirroring (display preferences)

 2) Turn off mirroring

 3) aximize your Indesign window to the screen (grren circle in menubar).

[Chacha26026417kw3w]

Yooo..! Thank you Amy!

[Maggie26493256t70t]

I tried everyone's suggestions. No luck. What worked for me, finally, was shutting everything down, disconnecting the remote monitor, and starting up again. When In Design opened it was all back again on my laptop screen. 

[M.258470710krd]

Thank you, it worked!

[Joshua28546881cp4y]

Adobe, your standards are slipping.

I've had this problem for perennially a couple of years & thus differnt Mac Pro's, different OSs.

Having to change resolution in settings for my laptop is not an acceptable workaround.

Oh and your recent iterations of Acrobat Pro are also junk.

How about diverting some marketing $ into making your programs reliably work

[shanehgrapeinc]

Agree. So many workarounds for something that should never happen for any reason. I feel that Adobe does not test its software for users who don't use the application frame and who use a secondary monitor to store palettes. I have also noticed Acrobat Pro being bloated and slow. I don't use Bridge anymore because it takes to long to boot and has too many bugs. 

[Josh23186274wq0a]

Unchecking Application Frame didn't work for me.

What has worked is a program called Raycast — Make sure InDesign is the active application, hit the command to bring up the Raycast window, then choose the "Reasonable Size" window management option.

[System Equine]

omg this app is great and solved the problem for me (for free) thank you!!

[Joe31820131jn5i]

I was having this issue with my Find/Replace window. None of the other suggestions were working for me; restarted, unplugged monitors, eworkspace reset, tc. What did work was rearraging my screens in the Windows Display settings, so that instead of being side-by-side, my screens were on top of each other. I could then grab the top on the panel and drag it down in place.

[Reaveley5CF5]

THANK YOU!!! None of these other options worked for me. It took me over an hour of research to find this brilliant workaround.

[default9760f0iy2304]

The top portion of the InDesign application window was off screen and no way to move it. I have a three monitor setup with two in portrait orientation. Although I was able to see the full frame when I un-checked the "application frame" option under the window menu, I was unable to go full screen after that. Eventually, I was able to grab the upper portion of the frame that I could see, and drag it to the left (decreasing width of window) and it "snapped" out of it, allowing me to see the top of the frame and its controls. I hope this solution works for you as well.

[villainess · Accepted solution]

Sharing this particular solution in case it helps someone because this issue was driving me nuts. In InDesign 18.3 (2023), on Mac Studio, Mac Studio Display, the document window (left, bottom) is always off-screen when I open a file. I don't use the Application Frame because it constricts my workflow, but I did try toggling on and off. Didn't help. I can click the green button to make the window fit the entire screen, but if I try to adjust it smaller/narrower, it jumps off the screen again.
By accident (actually by a fit of anger TBH), I found that if I fit to screen and then grab that bottom right corner, I could then keep my mouse clicked-down and move in a counter-clockwise motion, with kind of a large circle, and the corner would follow and I was able to make the window not as wide. I like free-wheeling movable palettes that aren't stuck to anything, so I like to keep a small open section on the far right of my screen for palettes.
I know this is late, but this issue was so frustrating, and I was so happy to find a solution, I just wanted to add it here in case anyone else was looking for a solution to the same problem.

[Kirsten31225457vt72]

Perfect fix - thanks! 

[marks80484509]

On a Mac go down to the bottom of the InDesign frame like until the cursor changes to an arrow (like you were going to enlarge the screen) then hold option and move the arrow up to make the frame smaller. Since option is held both sides of the frame reduce in size and I was able to get the top of the frame that went off the screen.