Today’s Question: Suddenly Photoshop is attempting to force me to save photos in the cloud every time I save, even though I have clicked the “On My Computer” button. Is there a way to make my computer the default storage location, as clicking the option every time is very annoying.
Tim’s Quick Answer: The issue of Photoshop constantly defaulting to saving files in cloud-based storage is a change from a recent update, and can be resolved by setting the Default File Location setting to “On your computer” on the File Handling tab of the Preferences dialog in Photoshop.
More Detail: Cloud-based storage can most certainly provide a variety of benefits, including having files available from any of your devices that are connected to the internet and a form of automatic backup for your files. However, that doesn’t make cloud-based storage the right solution for all users or for all files.
Furthermore, I’m convinced that companies (including Adobe) that offer cloud-based storage where you pay extra if you exceed certain storage capacity make efforts to push users toward cloud-based storage in the hopes of increasing subscription revenue for that storage.
In earlier version of Photoshop the default option in the Save As dialog was to store files in Adobe’s cloud-based storage. However, if you clicked the “On your computer” button that would become the new default when you save new files. With a recent update that changed, and by default the Save As dialog will revert to the option to save in your Creative Cloud online storage rather than locally on your computer.
Fortunately, you can change this setting in Preferences. Start by choosing Edit > Preferences > File Handling on Windows or Photoshop > Preferences > File Handling on Macintosh. On the File Handling tab of the Preferences dialog you’ll find the Default File Location popup in the File Saving Options section at the top of the dialog. Change that popup from the default value of “Creative Cloud” to “On your computer”. This will cause the Save As dialog to default to local storage rather than cloud-based storage moving forward.
