How to uninstall Creative Cloud on a Mac

Before you start

• Adobe would rather you did not. Its help says it does not recommend uninstalling the Creative Cloud desktop app, which is usually needed only when troubleshooting or when the installer has a problem. If that is why you are here, the uninstaller's Repair button, below, comes first.
• Remove the apps first. The desktop app can be uninstalled only once every Creative Cloud app, such as Photoshop, Illustrator and Premiere, has been.
• Let your files sync. Adobe warns that files not synced to your Creative Cloud account could be lost. Files that have synced stay in your account.
• A work Mac may need IT. Enterprise users may not have the administrator rights to uninstall, in which case Adobe's advice is to contact the admin.

1. Uninstall each Creative Cloud app

1. Click the Creative Cloud icon in the menu bar to open the Creative Cloud desktop app.
2. In the Apps tab on the left, select Your apps.
3. Next to an app, select the More actions icon, then Uninstall.
4. Choose Remove to delete that app's notifications, alerts, interface settings, plugins and other preferences, or Keep to leave them for a future installation.

If you are leaving Adobe, Remove is the one that leaves nothing for later. If you cannot open the Creative Cloud app, for example because you are offline, Adobe's alternative is to open Applications, find the app's folder, and double-click the shortcut named Uninstall or [App name] Uninstaller inside it. Adobe's caution for that route is to save your important files and settings somewhere else first.

2. Uninstall the Creative Cloud desktop app

1. Download the Creative Cloud Uninstaller from Adobe's uninstall page. There are three versions: macOS v10.12 or later, Mac computers with Apple silicon, and macOS v10.11 or earlier.
2. Extract the zipped file and double-click Creative Cloud Uninstaller. Depending on your security settings, macOS may warn you before it opens; select Open to continue.
3. Select Repair if you are troubleshooting. If that fixes the problem, you do not need to uninstall.
4. Otherwise select Uninstall, and select Close when it confirms.

If the uninstaller does not finish the job

Adobe's Creative Cloud Cleaner tool is its next step for broken installations: it removes old Adobe software and cleans corrupt installation files. On a Mac you download it, open AdobeCreativeCloudCleanerTool.dmg, accept the licence, choose what to remove from the menu at the top right, select it in the table and click Cleanup Selected, then quit and restart when it reports success. Use the uninstaller first; the Cleaner is for when that fails.

What stays: Camera Raw's AI models

Lightroom Classic and Photoshop open raw photos through Adobe Camera Raw, which downloads AI models the first time you use a feature such as Denoise, Super Resolution or subject and sky masking. They live in ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/CameraRaw/ModelZoo and stay there after the app that fetched them is gone. To see how much they hold:

du -sh ~/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/CameraRaw/ModelZoo 2>/dev/null

If you are not coming back, go there with Shift-Command-G in Finder and drag the folder to the Trash. Leave the rest of ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe alone unless every Adobe app is gone: a vendor's folder can hold data for its other apps. For other pieces, search by bundle ID as the leftover files after uninstalling an app describes.

Where the app comes in

RefreshYourMac has no Creative Cloud category, and an app that installs as much as Adobe's should go with Adobe's own uninstaller, with the steps above. What it does measure is Adobe Camera Raw AI Models: the models folder above, which Camera Raw downloads again the next time a feature needs one, while your photos, catalogues, presets and edits are stored elsewhere and not touched. Its Uninstall an App, described in how to uninstall apps on a Mac, finds an app's pieces by bundle ID and never claims a folder on the strength of the name Adobe alone, so the shared Adobe folder is not swept up with one app. Both are in the download edition, not the Mac App Store edition.