How can I fix Adobe Indesign crashing on launch?

I find the most common issue is a Recovery folder full of junk. InDesign is like shipping logs down a river. Everything is fine until that one log decides to go sideways. And then all the other logs get jammed up and stability declines.

Here are three suggestions and probably a bonus fourth.

1: Clear InDesign's Recovery Folder

Quit InDesign - ha, I know, its crashing... In the Finder, go to your Library folder (if you don't know how, make the Finder active, hold down the Option key on your keyboard and select the Go menu. You will see Library in the list. Select Library and let go of the Option key. You are now in your Library folder). Once in there, go to:

Caches > Adobe InDesign > Version 20.0 > en_US > InDesign Recovery

I assume you are on the latest InDesign. If no, the version number will differ. Otherwise the path is the same.

How many items are in your InDesign Recovery folder? If more than 5, select them all and move them to the Trash. Try opening InDesign again.

2: Clear InDesign's Saved Application State

Quit InDesign - ha, I know, its crashing... In the Finder, go to your Library folder (if you don't know how, make the Finder active, hold down the Option key on your keyboard and select the Go menu. You will see Library in the list. Select Library and let go of the Option key. You are now in your Library folder). Once in there, go to:

Saved Application State

Grab the folder titled "com.adobe.InDesign.savedState" and move it to the Trash.

Try opening InDesign again.

3: Purge your InDesign Preferences

Quit InDesign - ha, I know, its crashing... In the Finder, go to your Library folder (if you don't know how, make the Finder active, hold down the Option key on your keyboard and select the Go menu. You will see Library in the list. Select Library and let go of the Option key. You are now in your Library folder). Once in there, go to:

Preferences

Grab the folder titled "Adobe InDesign" and move it to the Trash.

Grab the file titled "com.adobe.InDesign.plist" and move it to the Trash.

Try opening ID again.

Now, generally, this is the most surgical process. Keep in mind that there are a number of "preferences" in:

Caches > Adobe InDesign > Version 20.0 > en_US

For example, the Font list, font masks, scrap files, and saved data files are in this location. You can go nuclear and just purge the entire en_US folder. I generally start with the Recovery folder first as it seems to be the usual suspect.

4: Fonts and Plugins

This is much rarer today because fonts are just generally better and we use less of them. However, you may want to disable excess fonts just to see if the font table is causing ID to choke. And then there are the 3rd party plugins. These are a thorn in all of our sides. If you have plugins installed, consider disabling them to see if that allows ID to launch.

Ok, hope one of these resolves the issue and gets you back working.