When I launch InDesign it opens an old file by itself

[10thumbs]

Currently this is more an irritant that anything — but I worry it will lead to something more problematic.

Whenever I launch InDesign (19.4.0.63) the application opens an old file.

This happens whether I launch InDesign from either the Dock or Applications folder OR if I open an exisiting file (which launches InDesign).

What I've tried thus far:

1.  Deleted the .idlk file — there was one the first time I experienced this problem but now doesn't appear to be one in that folder. (I've experienced before if a file crashes the .idlk file lingers, but it's always gone away on relaunch or ever so rarely i've had to manually delete it).
2. Tried saving (overwriting) the file when closing InDesign after being prompted (which I am each time).
3. Tried saving the file w/ a new name.
4. in /username/library/preferences I deleted the Adobe InDesign folder and com.adobe.InDesign.plist
5. Ran Apple Disk Utility.

None of these have worked. Any thoughts on how to fix this issue?
Thanks in advance!

[10thumbs]

Whenever I launch InDesign (19.4.0.63) the application opens an old file.

This is the same file every time, not some random file.

This file is one (a) i'm not intending to open and (b) that i haven't worked on in a week or so.

[BobLevine]

Is there a hyperlink to the other in the one you're trying to open?

[10thumbs]

This is happening when i just launch InDesign -- as you would, say, when you were going to create a new file. (To be clear it also happens if i try and open a document which then launches InDesign too, but the former seems more relevant.).

So, for example, this morning I had a zoom meeting. During the meeting I needed to look at a file created last year. Rather than looking for it on my HD, I just launched InDesign from the Mac Dock and figured I'd open via File/open... while we were talking.

InDesign launched and — as it has done for about a week — opened "2024 Summer Academy Booklet.indd" without any prompting from me (This is a file I have finsihed and printed (and just haven't archived yet; and which is not the file I was going to open).

FWIW — though it's not the question you were asking I believe — the file 2024 Summer Academy Booklet.indd does have some hyperlinks but I don't see how that would cause the file to open every time I launch InDesign.

[10thumbs · Accepted solution]

Well... problem solved I guess?

InDesign launched and — as it has done for about a week — opened "2024 Summer Academy Booklet.indd" without any prompting from me (This is a file I have finsihed and printed (and just haven't archived yet; and which is not the file I was going to open).

By @10thumbs

After typing the above (bolded and underlined), I decided to try "archive" this file's job folder.

For me this means moving it to a different folder in the same directory -- e.g. from Work In Progress to Archived Files/2024 Archived Files both of which live in Design Files.

After doing this and launching InDesign I got the "InDesign cannot locate the recovery file data for "2024 Summer Academy Booklet.indd" do you want to update the path YES NO CANCEL" (or something like that... going by memory).

I clicked NO, quit InDesign, reopened and INDD didn't open "2024 Summer Academy Booklet.indd" anymore.

--------------

To tempt fate I tried moving the folder BACK into Work in Progress and launching INDD and it did NOT reopen the file unprompted. — so i guess i just needed to break the recovery path link.

I guess I figured deleting the preferences would have done this but i guess not?

[Sydney L.]

I have had the same problem for weeks and did some digging today to figure out an official solution, in case anyone else has this problem. 

1.  Quit InDesign (just to be careful)
2. Navigate to your InDesign Recovery docs, here's the locations:
   
   • macOS: Users/[User Name]/Library/Cache/Adobe InDesign/Version[#.0]/InDesign Recovery.
   • Windows: C:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Local\Adobe\InDesign\Version [#].0\en_US\Caches\InDesign Recovery.
3. Clear out the InDesign Recovery documents, but don't delete the InDesign Recovery file itself
4. Reopen InDesign

That should fix the issue, it did for me!