A fix for ExtendScript Toolkit running slow

This post will only be of interest to people who create or edit scripts for Creative Cloud applications such as InDesign.

Since the end of 2014, the ExtendScript Toolkit, which is Adobe’s script editing tool, has had a problem with running very slowly on Macintosh computers running OS X 10.10 or later. See this forum thread for more details.

Scripter extraordinaire Chuck Weger discovered that disabling the “App Nap” feature of OS X restores the performance of the ExtendScript Toolkit.

1. Press Command-Shift-U to open the Utilities folder on your Mac

2. Double-click on the Terminal app

3. At the prompt, type:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAppSleepDisabled -bool YES

For more information, see this article.

Want to learn more about scripting InDesign? See my InDesign Scripting Made Easy course on Lynda.com