Memory problem with InDesign 2023 Quicklook feature

Report · Nov 10, 2022

I'm using MacOS Ventura and I keep my work computer turned on 24/7 so I can connect to it from home.

I found a memory leak in the new InDesign Quicklook feature.

I was experiencing sluggishness like when memory runs out but couldn't see that I was doing something I haven't done before. There's 24 GB RAM in my Mac and it seldom runs out.

I had a look at the Activity Monitor and saw the InDesign Quicklook plugin using almost 7 GB RAM!

I force quit it and it restarts at about 250 MB RAM. Now it's 3-4 days later and it's up to 1 GB RAM. Looks like it's slowly eating up memory and since I dont turn off my Mac it builds up.

Posting this as a heads up to others. Don't know how to send in a bug report to Adobe but maybe someone here knows about that?

Back at 1 GB RAM after a few days

Report · Nov 10, 2022

Having been a longtime InDesign user I had never heard of an InDesign Quicklook feature.

A search suggests it's a Markzware extension:

https://markzware.com/id-util/get-quicklook-finder-previews-adobe-indesign-files-id-util-macos/

Is that what you have installed? If so, you should contact Markzware.

Report · Nov 18, 2022

Sorry, I assumed everyone had read the release notes for inDesign 2023.

So it's built in now.

https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/whats-new/2023.html#doc-preview

Report · Nov 18, 2022

Adobe doesn't call it QuickLook. In their documentation, it's just the ability to preview documents. The name confused me. I don't spend much time using features about my Mac's memory and have never experiended memory problems.

Report · Nov 18, 2022

I haven't had to look at Activity Monitor for a very long time, but I see that the InDesign Extension is referred to there as QuickLook, but you're the first person I've heard mention it.

Report · Nov 18, 2022

I haven't looked into this from a technical standpoint. I had memory problems and a sluggish Mac and it was recently after the Adobe 2023 updates so I took a look at the activity and I knew that anything called QuickLook shouldn't use 7 GB RAM.

After I started the thread I've had the sluggishness occur once more and then it only used 3 GB RAM but a force quit makes the Mac responsive again.

Report · Nov 18, 2022

Quicklook is Mac OS Spotlight. What you are seeing is the Mac OS Quicklook taking up memory to preview the InDesign document. The memory leak has been an issue for a long time daing back to High Sierra:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8506070

https://9to5mac.com/2021/11/26/three-monterey-bugs/

Report · Nov 18, 2022

I've used QuickLook plugins to view InDesign documents since they became available. First ArtView for a long time and when it died I've used Markz tools and also a third one avaialble at the AppStore. I've never had this problem before. So I think the Adobe implementation is a new problem. Maybe in combo with other bugs.

Report · Nov 18, 2022

If you think so, but I've seen this problem for years.

You can search for and upvote or file a new bug report here:

https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601180-adobe-indesign-bugs

Report · Mar 26, 2024

Easier fix is just turning it off. How do we disable it?

Report · May 03, 2024

We have severe problems showing the "opened as write protected" issue. During my research, I found this thread and I am testing if anything is changing when deactivating the "new" InDesign QuickLook feature. Irritatingly, the plugin is not found in the standard OS directories (~/Library/QuickLook). I found it by right-clicking on the InDesign-App, "show package content", going to /Contents/Plugins. There is a file called "IDQuickLookPreview.appex" which we quickly renamed to "IDQuickLookPreview-BAK.appex" so InDesign doesn’t find it anymore.
The advantage is, that InDesign still keeps writing Previews into its documents but isn’t able to load this plugin anymore. I really don’t know, why the preview worked at all, even when InDesign hasn’t been active. But after renaming the OS just shows the ID-icon as it did before the new "feature", without any preview. We hope to reduce the error mentioned above and the overall system utilization. If it comes out to be the reason for any unconvenience, we will have to make this change to all our clients, of course. And after every software update of InDesign again.

Report · May 03, 2024

We have severe problems showing the "opened as write protected" issue. During my research, I found...

There is a file called "IDQuickLookPreview.appex" which we quickly renamed to "IDQuickLookPreview-BAK.appex" so InDesign doesn’t find it anymore...
We hope to reduce the error mentioned above and the overall system utilization. If it comes out to be the reason for any unconvenience, we will have to make this change to all our clients, of course. And after every software update of InDesign again.

By @defaultzyey9fhgioqc

Can you please elaborate...

So did disabling the plug-in solve the "opened as write protected" issue, and is the plug-in the reason for any other unspecified inconvenience?

Report · May 10, 2024

Hi everybody, after testing for couple of days without the quicklook feature, it appears not to be the origin of our write protections errors. But we found out how to disable the plugin the official way. In the System Preferences, go to Security & Privacy. In the section Others choose Extensions and there either Added Extensions or Overview. There you can disable the InDesign Quicklook plugin.

I want to add, that we didn’t turn off the feature on every Mac in the network, only on the affected systems. Our gigabit network consists of a variety of Macs with Sonoma, Kerio firewall and a Synology NAS. It feels like the problems occured with the switch from AFP to SMB and upgrade to InDesign 18 and Sonoma.

Report · Jul 01, 2024

I work with indesign in a company where my files are hosted on a server. For more than a year I have had the tedious problem of not being able to save an Indesign document or export a PDF with the same name, in these cases I would get the error: "The document cannot be saved. It may be open in another application". This forced me to save the file with another name or to rename the original file with a different name (I have all my folders full of "novalid01" "novalid02" "novalid03"...). I found an adobe article where it said: "Network files open as read-only when Quicklook preview is enabled" and looking for how to disable this Quicklook rubbish I found your post. Thanks a lot my friend, you are a life saver. Since I've turned it off all these problems have been solved and I'm much, much more productive and happier.

Report · Sep 10, 2024

I have been having this problem on a new Macbook Pro Nov 2023. It is primarily with the InDesign PDFs when previewed with the QuickLookUIService - I tried the solution to turn of this extension and it seems to have helped aleviate some of the problem. Still some PDFs associated to the InDesign file are using increased RAM as monitored in the Activity Monitor. For now it appears to be this connection between Indd and QuickLook spotlight. After several unexpected crashes with the App Memory (which never happened before on my older 2016 Macbook) I think this may be one solution. They should really forewarn about this. It is unexpected for a new laptop thats supposed to be more powerful. Any other solutions would be greatly appreciated.

Report · Sep 10, 2024

... Side note. I just discovered that OUTLOOK also has severe issues in the 'Preview' of files in the app. Anyone know how to fix that? Good grief!! It crashed without even a second to force quit.

Report · Sep 10, 2024

Just in case: are you running the latest InDesign version? Also, what version of macOS?

Report · Sep 12, 2024

Yes. ALL Adobe CC Apps are Up to date. Its MacOS Sonoma. its a Brand New Macbook Pro (Nov 2023) Brand new as in I just bought it.

Ive tried minimizing the use of the QuickLookUIService to avoid risking this happening each time. But a bit of a disturbance to a smooth workflow.

Report · Sep 12, 2024

I have been having this problem on a new Macbook Pro Nov 2023. It is primarily with the InDesign PDFs when previewed with the QuickLookUIService - I tried the solution to turn of this extension and it seems to have helped aleviate some of the problem. For now it appears to be this connection between Indd and QuickLook spotlight. After several unexpected crashes with the App Memory (which never happened before on my older 2016 Macbook) I think this may be one solution.

By @Ryan5CDC

First, do I understand correctly that you have issues when prevewing PDF files? PDF preview is provided by the same engine, regardless of the app that produced the PDF file (InDesign or otherwise).

Still some PDFs associated to the InDesign file are using increased RAM as monitored in the Activity Monitor.

Can you please elaborate on this... What kind of increased RAM use do you experience? Can you post some screenshots from Activity Monitor that illustrate the problem?

After several unexpected crashes with the App Memory (which never happened before on my older 2016 Macbook)

Could you please clarify this, too... What exactly are the crashes with "App Memory"? What app did crash, or was it a system crash that required to restart the Mac? How do you know these crashes were memory-related?

Also, how much RAM does your machine have? Also just in case: is your Sonoma updated to the latest version?

Report · Sep 13, 2024

The initial post at the top of this chat is the basic scenario. Which is why I related to this post almost to a T.

Everything is to the most Up-To-Date as it gets at this point.

18GB RAM on this MBP. It was primarily PDFs associated with Indd. I tried to monitor other PDFs in the Activity Monitor and those seemed fine. I cant explain it either. Sometimes it happens sometimmes not so specifically.

Here is a quick try. mere seconds with previewing this PDF and I stopped it before it would tell me App Memory exceeded.

It very well could be an Apple issue - hence the QuickLookUIService. As mentioned it also happens when previewing directly from Outlook on a mac.

Report · Sep 14, 2024

18GB RAM on this MBP. It was primarily PDFs associated with Indd. I tried to monitor other PDFs in the Activity Monitor and those seemed fine. I cant explain it either. Sometimes it happens sometimmes not so specifically.

By @Ryan5CDC

Yes, it sounds unusual. ~14 GB used by QuickLook UIService (Finder) is bizarre.

I still don't think this is related to the fact that these PDFs were created in InDesign. It's possible that PDFs created from InDesign are particularly heavy - while others are not.

I wonder if you can upload a couple of sample PDF files : one created from InDesign, and another from a different program.

I any case, 14 GB used by QuickLook is still excessive (unless you preview some image-rich monster PDFs with tens of thousands of pages?)

Here is a quick try. mere seconds with previewing this PDF and I stopped it before it would tell me App Memory exceeded.

You still need to show us a screenshot of this "App Memory exceeded" message. I personally have never seen such a message. It's important to know what it says exactly.

Also, is it possible that 16 GB is not sufficient for the amount and type of tasks you perform on your machine? Is your Memory Pressure in green in Activity Monitor?

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