Adobe XD is an excellent collaborative tool for any design team looking to bring their vision to life through realistic prototypes. It offers the ability to have a focused shared experience with your team members at any phase of the project— and when you have deadlines, you want to be sure your software and applications are reliable in getting you across the finish line.

If you’re experiencing lag or freezing when using Adobe XD, it could be due to the following reasons:

1. System Update Needed
2. Application Version Update Needed
3. Graphics Driver Update Needed
4. Corrupt Files
5. Application Memory Usage

Let’s look at each of these possibilities and how they affect your hardware’s ability to function while using the application. Luckily, there are troubleshooting steps and solutions for these problems.

5 Reasons Adobe XD is So Slow

Having an application you rely on for work or personal projects consistently have issues with performance is frustrating. It can also affect individual and corporate-wide deadlines if other team members are experiencing the same hiccups. Fortunately, problem-solving allows you to narrow down the cause and find a solution— here is a jump start to that process. If you’d rather forgo the problem-solving route, you can always use another application or even a website like Placeit.net for your design needs.

1. System Update Needed

When we don’t have the latest version of your system’s software installed on time, it can cause problems with applications we are using that create their own updates based on the most recent version of your system. If you’re having issues with an application, like Adobe XD, glitching or lagging, the first and easiest step to resolving the problem is checking if your system is up-to-date.

Most tech users have their devices set to automatic updates, but on occasion, a device will miss an update if there isn’t enough power supply to install. So, whether you are a Windows or Mac user, it would benefit you to check your system for updates and install them if there are any available. Once you’ve done so, you can revisit your application and assess its performance with the update. If you’re still experiencing lags or freezing, take the next troubleshooting step.

2. Application Version Update Needed

Just like your system needs to be kept up-to-date, so do your applications. Technicians and developers consistently take in customer feedback and learn from user experience to improve the application and resolve the issues being vocalized to enhance the user experience.

Check the version of the application you are using to ensure it is the latest version available. If not, update your application. Chances are, the solution to your lagging problem will be found in that newest update. Be sure to save your work and exit the application before updating. Once you’ve downloaded the latest version, you can open the updated application and assess its performance after some use. If you’re still experiencing the same problems, take the next troubleshooting step.

3. Graphics Drivers Update Needed

If you’re not already aware, a graphics driver dictates how graphic components work with your computer software, monitor, applications, etc. So, if you’re working on a design project and noticed that the components are slow to load or update when you’ve made a change, it could be due to the graphics driver.

You can do two things if your graphics driver is responsible for your issues with Adobe XD, you can update, or you can uninstall and reinstall. Your system may have a troubleshooter you can use on your graphics driver to determine if it is corrupt. Updating should always be the first step before uninstalling. Be sure to save your work and close the application before updating. Assess any changes in performance before trying the next option.

4. Corrupt Files

Technical support will ask a few questions if you seek help from Adobe support about Adobe XD. This article has already laid out most of those questions/troubleshooting steps. The last one will prompt you to determine if your lagging problem is due to one file or if the issue is consistent across any file you open in the application.

If lagging or freezing is only present when working on one particular file or perhaps a few, then corrupt files may be your dilemma. The recommendation for resolving this problem is to uninstall the application using Adobe’s Cleaner Tool. This tool is specifically designed to clean up corrupt files and installations. Once it removes or fixes the problem files and takes care of permission issues in the registry key, you can reinstall the application.

Before using the tool, be sure to take a backup of your log files, wait for all files to sync, and save a copy of all content in Adobe product files, as well as old installer files. After reinstallation, assess the application’s performance to determine if this fixed the problem.

5. Application Memory Usage

Some Adobe XD users have noticed at various times that the application will use a large amount of memory, causing the application to slow down, regardless of whether or not other applications are opened simultaneously. Some users have reported Adobe XD using 95% of their memory and 75% of their CPU. If none of the fixes mentioned above have worked, check how much memory the application is taking up.

There are a few ways to approach fixing the memory issue. Using the cleaner tool and reinstalling it did the trick for some users. If that doesn’t work for you, changing the proxy settings under network/internet settings could be the solution. Once you’re in the settings, be sure the option to not use the proxy server for local (intranet) addresses is turned on or enabled.

Conclusion

One other honorable mention fix is checking any malware protection and adding exceptions for Adobe XD if needed. If none of the fixes mentioned above worked for you, contact Adobe support for further assistance. They will ask for specific information to hone in on what is causing your particular issue and help to find a solution.