Opening PDFs in preview crashes and freezes whole MacBook Pro, I can’t read any PDFs, HELP!

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Opening PDFs in preview crashes and freezes whole MacBook Pro, I can’t read any PDFs, HELP!

I’ve only had my 2017 MacBook Pro for a year, I sometimes use acrobat pro to reduce a PDF file size, but prefer preview for quick viewing and opening.

I recently tried opening a pdf for a work project and it completely froze preview into a blank white screen. Now whenever I open pdfs, images or any other file in preview it crashes the whole preview app.

I've tried deleting the .PList files in ~Library/ folder that’s been advised already and also booting up in safe mode but still no success.

any chance anyone has another idea?

any help would be gratefully appreciated.

thanks :)

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.14

Posted on Jul 30, 2020 8:55 AM

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Answer 1

CarlAVII

Community Specialist

Aug 2, 2020 11:56 AM in response to Jakeyboy24

Hi Jakeyboy24,

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities! It looks like you're having issue opening files with Preview on your 2017 MacBook Pro. We find that to be an easy way to view items as well so we understand looking for help with this.

Since you've already completed a couple steps, we'd like you to check out How to test an issue in another user account on your Mac to see if you can isolate it to your user or the MacBook itself. If it continues to happen in the test user, you'll want to follow the steps here: How to reinstall macOS from macOS Recovery.

Hope that helps.

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Answer 2

Aug 2, 2020 12:03 PM in response to Jakeyboy24

You could try opening PDFs in another software like Safari or Chrome.

https://support.apple.com/en-gu/guide/safari/ibrw1090/mac

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Opening PDFs in preview crashes and freezes whole MacBook Pro, I can’t read any PDFs, HELP!

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