How to uninstall Adobe Creative Cloud on Windows properly

Few modern Windows apps are as difficult to uninstall as the Adobe Creative Cloud (Adobe CC) suite. However, with the right approach, you can remove Adobe CC and all traces of it in about 10 minutes. Here's how.

Uninstall all Adobe applications

To uninstall Adobe Creative Cloud, you first need to uninstall all Adobe applications, such as Photoshop, Lightroom, InDesign, Premiere Pro, etc., that you installed using Creative Cloud. Otherwise, you may see the error "Couldn't uninstall Creative Cloud for desktop".

While you can uninstall Adobe apps from the Settings app, it’s best to do it from the Adobe CC desktop app. This way, the desktop app can keep track of all the Adobe apps you’ve removed from your computer and prevent any escalations when you try to remove Creative Cloud.

To uninstall your Adobe applications:

• Launch Adobe Creative Cloud and sign in if necessary.
• Open the Apps tab . You can find your installed apps in the right pane, under Installed apps .
• Hover your mouse over the app, then click the three-dot menu and select Uninstall .

• Repeat the steps to remove all apps.

If you can't access your Adobe CC account, try uninstalling Adobe apps from the Settings app. To do this, press Win + I on your keyboard to open Settings , select Apps from the left sidebar, and click Installed Apps on the right.

Locate the Adobe app you want to remove, click the three-dot menu, and select Uninstall . Click Uninstall again to remove the app. If you still can't uninstall the apps, use the Adobe CC Cleaner tool as described in the last section of this guide.

Uninstall Adobe Creative Cloud using its uninstaller

You can easily uninstall any Windows app from the Settings app, except Adobe Creative Cloud for desktop. Any attempt to remove the app ends with the error “Couldn't uninstall Creative Cloud for desktop”. Instead, you can use Adobe CC Uninstaller, a dedicated uninstaller from Adobe, to uninstall desktop apps.

• Go to the Adobe Creative Cloud Uninstaller page, then scroll down to the Uninstall on Windows section . Click the link that matches your version of Windows.

https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/help/uninstall-creative-cloud-desktop-app.html

• Extract the downloaded zip file to your PC. Then, double-click the Creative Cloud Uninstaller.exe file to launch the uninstaller. Click Yes if prompted by Windows User Account Control.
• Then click Uninstall on the confirmation dialog and wait for the process to complete.

Clean up leftover junk software with Adobe CC Cleaner

Thanks to Adobe’s deep integration with Windows, you still need to clean up some leftover Creative Cloud junk. To remove junk and leftover files, we’ll use the Adobe Creative Cloud Cleaner tool.

• Go to the Adobe CC Cleaner download page. Here, scroll down to the How to use the Creative Cloud Cleaner tool section , then click Download . Once downloaded, run the AdobeCreativeCloudCleanerTool.exe file and click Yes .

https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/cc-cleaner-tool-installation-problems.html

• In the Command Prompt-like screen, type e and press Enter to select the language as English. Then, type Yes or Y and press Enter to agree to Adobe's end-user license agreement.

• The next screen will display all the Adobe bloatware left on your computer. Type 1 and press Enter to select to clean all files or press the corresponding number to remove a specific set of files.

• On the next screen, you will see a list of products installed on your computer. Type 6 and press Enter to select Clean All , then type Y and press Enter to confirm the action. Now, wait for the tool to finish deleting the files.

If it completes successfully, press Enter to exit. If you see any errors, run the tool again to remove any remaining files.

Manually delete Adobe Genuine Service and folders

The final piece of this puzzle involves removing the Adobe Genuine Service (also known as Adobe Client), which is designed to detect pirated Adobe tools on your computer.

To remove Adobe Genuine Service:

• Go to Settings > Apps > Installed apps .
• Find Adobe Genuine Service , click the three-dot menu and select Uninstall.
• Click Uninstall again to confirm the action.
• Click Yes , then click Uninstall in the Adobe Genuine Service Uninstaller wizard.

You can then delete the Adobe folders in the following locations:

C:\Program Files\Adobe
C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\Adobe (replace Username with your computer's username)
C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe
C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe

Open the Adobe folder, select all the files inside and select Delete . Do this for all the folders above. Also, remember to empty the recycle bin to free up space on your drive.

Adobe makes it unnecessarily difficult to remove the Creative Cloud desktop app. While Adobe provides some tools to clean up your installation, you still need to manually clean up all the files.