The first time you launch InDesign, you’ll notice that it takes a while to initialize. This is normal, but it can also be annoying if you want to get to work right away. This is especially true when you’re working on a design, and you don’t want to wait for InDesign to open.

The problem is not with InDesign, but with the process of starting it. The problem is that your Mac is having issues with apps that automatically launch with your login.  Here’s how to stop InDesign from crashing on startup on a Mac.

InDesign Keeps Crashing on Startup

If you press Command+Option+Shift+Escape and get an error message, the best thing to do is to restart your Mac. This will force InDesign to shut down, then restart.

You can speed up the startup process by minimizing InDesign, or by turning off auto-update. However, there’s a much better way to make sure InDesign is ready to rock and roll every time you launch it.

There are a couple of things you can try if your Mac keeps crashing on startup. You can try turning off auto-update in the Preferences menu. If that doesn’t work, make sure you have enough space on your hard drive. If you’re using a SSD drive and InDesign is running very slowly, try replacing it with an older hard drive.

Set Up Auto-Update for InDesign

The first and easiest thing you can do to avoid a potential crash is to turn off auto-update for InDesign. This is because it’s constantly polling for updates and that can cause issues.

When you don’t turn this off, it won’t use your internet connection and it won’t try to update. If you turn off auto-update, you’ll need to manually update InDesign whenever there’s an update. Go to Applications, Adobe InDesign and finally select Check for Updates.

If you want to get really technical, you can change this to “check for updates without notification,” but we’re not here to be perfect. We’re here to avoid crashing on startup. If you don’t want to turn off auto-update, you can use the “Disable Updates” setting in the same menu to just prevent updates. This is a good option if you don’t want to risk crashing on startup.

Quit InDesign

The easiest way to avoid a potential InDesign crash is by quitting the application. When you’re working on a document and you have a lot of other things open, it’s easy to forget that you have a design application open. You may even be too focused to remember that it’s open.

This is when crashes happen, and it’s easy to just keep going. The best way to avoid this is to quit the application when you’re done working on it. When you’re done, click the “Quit” button in the upper right-hand corner and make sure to close it all the way. You’ll notice that if you keep the application open, crashes happen more often.

Disable Startup Items in OS X

The next thing you can do to make sure your Mac is ready to go when it starts is to disable startup items. If you’re not familiar with startup items, they’re items that automatically start when your Mac starts. That can include things like login items and applications that automatically launch.

One of the easiest ways to make sure your Mac doesn’t crash on startup is by disabling startup items. Go to:

• System Preferences
• Startup
• Select each item you don’t want to start

One caveat to this is that it might prevent some security tools from starting, which could be problematic. To check this, go to System Preferences, then Security and make sure “Allow items from” is set to “Everyone” so that you don’t accidentally stop something you really need to start.

Mac OS X Processes

The next thing to try is to disable any Mac OS X processes you’re not using. This is another way to make sure your Mac is ready to go when it starts. You can go to Applications and Manage Applications and use the “Remove” button to delete applications you’re not using.

If you’re not sure which ones you need, start with the most commonly used ones. If you have a slow Mac, you might want to try disabling anything that’s not essential to your workflow. This could include things like Mac OS X’s login items, automatic start-up items and other things you think you don’t need. This could make a big difference.

Mac OS X Startup Items

Next, you can try turning off any Mac OS X startup items that you’re not using. To do this, hold down the option key when starting up and choose “Preferences” from the menu.

 In the preferences window that opens, click on “Startup Disk” and uncheck anything you don’t need. For example, if you don’t use Time Machine, then you might want to uncheck it here so that it won’t be automatically started when your computer starts up.

Using a Startup Cleaner

There are several tools out there that can help you find and disable startup items or processes on your Mac. One of them is called Autoruns, which is part of Boot Camp’s Boot Camp Assistant . It’s available in Boot Camp for free, but if you have Sierra or later (which comes with Boot Camp pre-installed), then it should already

Conclusion

If your InDesign application crashes, it can make you annoyed as you are working on a project. InDesign is not crashing on startup, it’s just taking a while to start.

The best thing to do is to get rid of unused files and processes, quit the application when you’re done working on it, turn off auto-update and disable startup items on your Mac. These are all easy things you can do to speed up the startup process and make sure your Mac is ready to go when it starts.