Creative Cloud is one of those great tools that will help creatives bring their ideas to life. The problem is that a lot of the time, Creative Cloud is going to be very difficult to remove. Sure, it has its own uninstaller, but even that leaves a lot of data behind. So it does make a lot of sense to figure out what to keep on, what to delete, and the results can be pretty impressive in the end.
What should you do in the pre-uninstallation process?
Before starting the Creative Cloud removal process, it’s important to figure out what to do as you prepare to delete the tool. And yes, there are some tasks you may want to consider, just to be on the safe side.
- First, you want to quit the Adobe apps and services first. You don’t want them to run as you uninstall Creative Cloud, because you will encounter errors.
- Once you do that, you will need to sync your stuff. That means all the fonts, libraries, Creative Cloud files and so on. Export everything and create backups if you want to. The idea is to keep everything safe, just to be on the safe side.
- And on top of that, you also want to check if you are an administrator in the System Settings. That way, you have complete control over the uninstallation process, which is going to matter quite a bit.
Use a cleanup tool
Using an app like cleanmymac is a great idea because these cleanup tools will have a one-click option to remove everything. And the best part is that it all works very well, it’s seamlessly integrated, and you don’t have to worry about the removal process being too intrusive or anything like that. Instead, it all works very well, and it can give you the value you are looking for. All you have to do is to avail the solution and make the most out of it.
Removing Creative Cloud manually
Some people want to fully remove Creative Cloud on their own, manually. And that’s fine, there are certain options to keep in mind here.
- Enter the Creative Cloud Desktop app.
- Then, you go to the Apps/Installed
- For each app you want to remove, you press Uninstall
- Then you repeat this until there are no Creative Cloud apps left
After that, you enter the Applications folder on your Mac, Adobe Creative Cloud and then Uninstall Adobe Creative Cloud. Run the uninstaller, and you will be good to go. However, you have to keep in mind that there will still be some leftovers, which is a problem. But thankfully, we have a quick guide to help you get rid of those properly, and here’s what you need to do.
Hunting the leftovers
As we said, leftovers remain, and depending on what you did with Creative Cloud and how many files you had, hunting those can be quite difficult. Thankfully, there are some great things you can do to approach that wisely.
- Enter the Library folder and there you can enter the Application Support, Caches, Preferences, LaunchAgents, Launchdaemons folders and remove everything related to Adobe. It will be quite a bit of stuff to remove manually, hence the reason why you may want to use an automated tool.
- Delete all the files found in those locations and then empty your Trash. It’s a good idea to be careful when removing files inside the library folders. That’s because you want to delete only stuff you know, otherwise there can be issues, and you want to avoid any concerns or problems that might arise.
What if Creative Cloud doesn’t want to uninstall?
It will happen sometimes, and if that’s the case, you want to force quit the sticky processes and even check the signed out loop if you want. You will have issues where the order was wrong when it comes to the stuff you uninstalled, in which case you have to manually go through this and see what was skipped. It will be a little tricky at first, but it’s definitely worth it by the end.
And of course, sometimes the uninstaller from the Creative Cloud tool might be missing. You can download it online which is great, so it’s still possible to completely optimize everything and optimize it to the best of your capabilities.
Conclusion
Removing Creative Cloud is going to be a bit tricky, depending on the option you choose. Ideally, you want to opt for a completely automatic removal, as cleanup tools will know what to remove and where to search. Otherwise, you will have to do everything manually, something that’s great but it still has its fair share of challenges. That’s why it’s imperative to check it out for yourself, and then see which approach works best for you.
