Today’s Question: I am expecting to be working in a very remote location for about five weeks and want to be sure I will be able to access Lightroom Classic and Photoshop on my laptop. Is there anything I need to do to be sure I have access while being offline for such a period of time?
Tim’s Quick Answer: If you have a monthly subscription you will need to connect to the internet at least every 30 days. You can extend this to a 99-day grace period by switching to an annual plan rather than monthly.
More Detail: Adobe applications require that you validate your subscription via an internet connection. There is a 30-day grace period for monthly Creative Cloud subscribers and a 99-day grace period for annual subscribers. If you want to change your plan to the annual option, you will need to contact Adobe support directly to make this change.
If you’re traveling offline for a period of time that exceeds the grace period at some point during the trip, you’ll need to get online to reset the clock. You can also reset that clock before your trip to help ensure you’ll have as much time as possible working offline before you need to validate your subscription again.
So, I recommend resetting the clock before your trip, and then again along the way based on the grace period available to you.
To reset the clock for your subscription validation first make sure to quit Lightroom Classic and any other Adobe applications that may be open. Then go to the main Creative Cloud app (where you install updates, for example), and click the icon representing your account at the top-right of the window. Choose “Sign Out” from the popup and click to confirm in the dialog that appears.
Next, sign in again with your Creative Cloud account. You can then close the Creative Cloud application window and launch both Lightroom Classic and Photoshop to reset the clock. Repeat this process whenever you’re able to get online during your trip to reset the clock for the grace period.
Note, by the way, that if you aren’t able to validate your Creative Cloud subscription during an extended period offline, you won’t lose any of your data. You simply won’t be able to use the Adobe applications until you’re able to get back online to validate the subscription.
