How to completely uninstall Adobe Creative Cloud on Mac
Dragging Creative Cloud to the Trash removes the app itself, but its support files, caches and settings stay on your Mac. Here is where they are and how to remove all of them.
The Creative Cloud desktop app is the hub for Photoshop, Illustrator and the other Adobe apps, and it installs shared services across /Library and /Applications/Utilities. Adobe provides two tools for removing it: the Creative Cloud Uninstaller, and the Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool for installations that will not uninstall normally.
Uninstall the individual Adobe apps first, from the Creative Cloud app. Adobe's uninstaller for the desktop app only runs once they are gone. Make sure your files have finished syncing: the Creative Cloud Files folder in your home folder is your own data, so keep or back it up yourself. Then sign out and run the Creative Cloud Uninstaller from Adobe.
com.adobe.acc.AdobeCreativeCloudRemove Creative Cloud by hand
- Quit Creative Cloud. If it has a menu bar icon or runs in the background, quit that too.
- Open the Applications folder and drag Creative Cloud to the Trash.
- In Finder, choose Go > Go to Folder (Shift-Command-G), paste each location below, and move what you find to the Trash. Not every location exists for every version.
- Empty the Trash, then restart your Mac so nothing from Creative Cloud is left running.
Where Creative Cloud keeps its files
/Applications/Utilities/Adobe Creative Cloud/ACC/Creative Cloud.app~/Library/Caches/com.adobe.acc.AdobeCreativeCloud~/Library/Preferences/com.adobe.acc.AdobeCreativeCloud.plist~/Library/Saved Application State/com.adobe.acc.AdobeCreativeCloud.savedState~/Library/Containers/com.adobe.acc.AdobeCreativeCloud~/Library/HTTPStorages/com.adobe.acc.AdobeCreativeCloud~/Library/WebKit/com.adobe.acc.AdobeCreativeCloud
Other places Creative Cloud uses
/Applications/Adobe Creative CloudData/Applications/Utilities/Adobe Creative CloudData/Applications/Utilities/Adobe SyncPrivileged helper/Applications/Utilities/Adobe Application ManagerPrivileged helper/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.adobe.agsservice.plistBackground service~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.adobe.ccxprocess.plistLaunch agent/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Adobe Desktop CommonPrivileged helper/Library/Application Support/Adobe/AdobeApplicationManagerPrivileged helper/Library/Application Support/Adobe/OOBEData~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/OOBEData~/Library/Group Containers/Adobe-Hub-AppContainer~/Library/Application Scripts/com.adobe.accmac.ACCFinderSyncData/Library/Logs/CreativeCloudData~/Library/Logs/CreativeCloudData
Items under /Library need your administrator password to remove.
The quick way
Diskzy finds Creative Cloud and the files listed here, shows the size of each one, and moves them to the Trash together. Files that another app also uses are left alone.
More uninstall guides
See where your Mac's space went
Diskzy maps your disk, explains System Data and clears what's safe. Free for 72 hours, then $9 once for 2 Macs.
Try Diskzy for free