Uninstall Adobe Creative Cloud on Mac

Copy ~/Creative Cloud Files somewhere outside that folder before you remove anything. Adobe discontinued the old Synced Files service and deleted its cloud copies, so the local folder may be the only copy left, and signing out renames it into something that looks like junk. Then close every Adobe app and save open projects. This page covers the Creative Cloud desktop app installed with Adobe's own installer, the apps it installs (tested with Adobe Bridge 2026), and the adobe-creative-cloud Homebrew cask. The reasons behind each step are in Adobe apps are gone, but Creative Cloud is still running, and the backup details in Uninstall Creative Cloud without losing your files.

Remove the Adobe apps first

Adobe only lets the desktop app go once every Creative Cloud app is gone. For each app, open Creative Cloud, go to Apps › All Apps, choose More actions (the three dots) next to the app, then Uninstall. Remove also deletes that app's preferences, plugins and interface settings; Keep leaves them for a later reinstall. Adobe's app removal steps

If Creative Cloud will not open, use the uninstaller Adobe puts next to each app. Every app lives in its own folder in Applications, such as /Applications/Adobe Bridge 2026, and that folder holds a shortcut named Uninstall Adobe Bridge 2026. Double-click it and follow the prompts. Adobe's offline removal steps

Dragging only the app to the Trash is where the leftovers start. In this test, trashing Adobe Bridge 2026.app left its root-owned folder, the uninstall shortcut inside it, and a second shortcut in /Applications/Utilities/Adobe Installers. Quit an Adobe app from its own menu rather than with kill: Bridge and its media server treat a plain terminate signal as a crash and show a "quit unexpectedly" report.

Remove the desktop app

Adobe's current route is its Creative Cloud Uninstaller: download the macOS version from Adobe's page, open it, and choose Repair first. If Repair does not fix the problem, run it again and choose Uninstall. The same uninstaller is already on your Mac at /Applications/Utilities/Adobe Creative Cloud/Utils/Creative Cloud Uninstaller.app. On a managed Mac you may not have the rights to run it; ask whoever administers the machine. Adobe's desktop app removal page

Creative Cloud Cleaner is Adobe's repair tool for a broken install, not a deeper version of Uninstall. Use it only when the uninstaller fails.

What Creative Cloud installs

Creative Cloud 6.10.0.253 is eight apps spread over root-owned folders, not one app, which is why none of it shows up where you expect in Applications.

Leave the parent folders /Library/Application Support/Adobe and ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe alone. Every Adobe product keeps something there, and so do shared licensing pieces such as Adobe PCD and AdobeGCClient. The same goes for the JQ525L2MZD.com.adobe.NGL group container in ~/Library/Group Containers.

Components that outlive the app

Creative Cloud runs mostly from those sibling folders, not from Creative Cloud.app. After the app went to the Trash in this test, Core Sync with its Finder extension, CCXProcess, Creative Cloud Helper, Adobe Desktop Service and AdobeIPCBroker kept running out of the Trash. Adobe's uninstaller stops them. If they are still running after a manual cleanup, log out or restart the Mac; the login items that would restart them should already be gone.

Check the result

pgrep -il 'core sync|ccxprocess|creative cloud|adobe desktop service|adobeipcbroker'
ls -d /Applications/Utilities/Adobe* "/Applications/Adobe Creative Cloud"
ls /Library/LaunchAgents /Library/LaunchDaemons /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools | grep -i adobe
ls ~/Library/LaunchAgents | grep -i adobe

No output from pgrep means none of the Creative Cloud components is running; any line it prints is still running, and once the login items are gone it does not come back after a restart. The second command should only list Adobe Genuine Service, plus Adobe Installers while another Adobe app is installed; "No such file or directory" for the rest is the result you want. The third and fourth commands should print nothing, except com.adobe.AdobeDesktopService.plist while another Adobe app remains and com.adobe.agsservice.plist, which belongs to Genuine Service.

If you installed it with Homebrew

brew uninstall --cask adobe-creative-cloud runs the cask's own removal: it unloads the login items, quits Creative Cloud and the helpers, and deletes the Creative Cloud folders under /Applications/Utilities. It also unloads and deletes Adobe Genuine Service's daemon.

Adding --zap goes much further. Its list moves ~/Creative Cloud Files, Adobe Desktop Common, Creative Cloud Libraries, Core Sync's state and shared licensing folders such as Adobe PCD, AdobeGC* and the Adobe-Hub-App group container to the Trash. Other Adobe apps depend on several of those. Only use --zap after copying out ~/Creative Cloud Files, and only when no other Adobe app is installed. A command you run yourself does not see anything you ticked or unticked in Mole.

Account and subscription

Uninstalling does not cancel a Creative Cloud plan or delete your Adobe account. Manage the plan on your Adobe account page.

What Mole lists

Creative Cloud appears as one row. The seven apps it installs next to itself are folded into it, so removing Core Sync or the Uninstaller on its own, which leaves Creative Cloud broken and its services running, is not offered. If Creative Cloud.app has already been trashed by hand, the first component still installed, usually Creative Cloud Desktop App, takes its place and carries the same list.

Before moving anything, Mole asks the Creative Cloud components to quit and stops the ones that do not. The root-owned folders need your administrator password and go to the Trash like everything else.

For an Adobe app such as Bridge, Mole lists its /Applications/Adobe <name> folder and its shortcut in Adobe Installers, both selected by default, alongside the app's own caches and preferences. Its data inside the shared Adobe folders, such as ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Bridge 2026, is listed but not selected.

Mole never lists ~/Creative Cloud Files, the Adobe parent folders, or the shared licensing pieces. For Adobe Genuine Service it points you to Adobe's own uninstaller instead of removing it.

What this test covered

On September 26, 2026, Creative Cloud 6.10.0.253 was installed with Adobe's installer, and Adobe Bridge 2026 (16.0.7) was installed through it. Bridge was removed through Mole first, then Creative Cloud, and a second pass started from a state where Creative Cloud.app had been trashed by hand. Two app group containers and their script folders stayed behind in that run because the Mac's app registry could not be read in time, which Mole treats as a reason to keep them. Photoshop and Lightroom, syncing real files through ~/Creative Cloud Files, Adobe's own Creative Cloud Uninstaller and the Homebrew cask were not tested.