How to Uninstall Adobe Apps

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Today’s Question: I have a follow-up question about your comment: “An uninstaller is included with Photoshop and Lightroom, for example.” I’ve never found an “uninstaller” in Photoshop or Lightroom. I just used right-click in Finder on the Photoshop folder and used “Move to Trash” = is that the same thing as your “uninstaller”?

Tim’s Quick Answer: You can generally uninstall an older Adobe application on Macintosh using the included Uninstall program. On Windows you can use the Programs and Features option (though this varies with different versions of Windows. For Creative Cloud versions of Adobe applications, however, you should use the Uninstall option in the Creative Cloud application.

More Detail: I’m not sure whether especially old version of Adobe applications included an uninstaller, but more recent versions have. On Macintosh it is generally save to simply delete the application (or application folder) from the Applications folder, without going through an uninstall process. However, when an uninstaller is available, I recommend using it to help ensure all application files are properly removed.

For Windows 10, you would want to use the Programs and Features option to remove older applications. Hold the Windows key and press “X” on the keyboard, and then choose “Programs and Features” from the popup menu that appears. Within Programs and Features you can then select the application you want to remove.

If you want to remove a Creative Cloud version of an Adobe application, you should use the Creative Cloud application for this. Bring up the Creative Cloud application first, which is where you would install updates that are available for installed applications, for example. Then click the ellipsis (three dots) icon at the bottom-right of the application you want to remove and choose Uninstall from the popup menu that appears.