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How do I stop the Adobe Creative Cloud app from auto-launching on login? I don't see any option of stopping this, and for some reason it's not in OS X's user login options.

Tuesday
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erotsppa
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    I noticed I got this problem when I stopped using The Pirate Bay version and started using the paid version of Adobe products :-( – William Entriken Sep 05 '17 at 19:42
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    We have this issue continually and since the CC app has so many versions, we might need another question to address a specific version of the CC App. Even with enterprise licenses to Adobe, this is problematic to manage. – bmike Apr 06 '19 at 17:50
  • Just referring to some comments here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2-xfrciu5o I can also mention that you can find Core Sync Finder Extension in System Preferences > Extensions and there is a check box there that can reduce the number of Adobe processes running by one or two. Otherwise search on Adobe in Activity Monitor to find processes to kill (obviously just a temp workaround when you haven't yet found a way to disable or even quit Adobe CC). – NeilG Jul 11 '22 at 09:35

4 Answers4

547

It is loaded by default by /Library/LaunchAgents/com.adobe.AdobeCreativeCloud.plist.

If you run

launchctl unload -w /Library/LaunchAgents/com.adobe.AdobeCreativeCloud.plist

that will disable it for your user.

To turn it back on

launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchAgents/com.adobe.AdobeCreativeCloud.plist
Alan Shutko
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    This worked really well! Just wondering, is there a way to make this apply to the guest user account as well? – user1434077 Oct 23 '14 at 17:43
  • It eats akmost 4% of my battery so yeah – Szymon Toda Apr 07 '15 at 05:51
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    After unloading it you can also delete the .plist and banish Adobe forever! (Or until next update :) – kakubei Apr 24 '15 at 14:48
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    Thanks, really annoyed by these background apps even unchecked the run at login. Still have the Core Sync Helper, anyone know how to remove it as well? – DazChong Dec 16 '15 at 03:23
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    I second @DazChong's request to disable Core Sync – Ben Sinclair Dec 17 '15 at 07:00
  • @DazChong and BenSinclair, I put up a question about this issue at http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/236577/how-to-disable-adobe-core-sync-app-on-os-x-from-being-launched-automatically – Jens Wirth Apr 29 '16 at 07:56
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    Works great. Then just sudo rm /Library/LaunchAgents/com.adobe.AdobeCreativeCloud.plist to get rid of it entirely. – Avishai Dec 02 '16 at 16:44
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    Don't forget to also unload the Adobe Updater, which runs in the background too: launchctl unload -w /Library/LaunchAgents/com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist – Daniel van Flymen Feb 05 '17 at 22:32
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    I created a Gist for a bash script. Just download it and run it. Feel free to add more processes to it in the future: https://gist.github.com/WadeShuler/670a281c1c29ab1aebb94a21798db155 – Wade Apr 25 '17 at 20:48
  • Worked for me. Mac OS High Sierra – Naveed Ahmad Nov 07 '17 at 18:13
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    The 'unload' subcommand in launchctl is now deprecated. Now use is 'bootout': launchctl bootout system /Library/LaunchAgents/com.adobe.AdobeCreativeCloud.plist – Tom Rose Apr 15 '19 at 14:56
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    The above comment does this system wide, which is the answer to the comment above for how to affect the guest account as well. To limit this to the active user, which also replicates the original functionality of this answer use this: launchctl bootout gui/<user’s UID> /Library/LaunchAgents/com.adobe.AdobeCreativeCloud.plist You can find your userid by running id in terminal. – Tom Rose Apr 15 '19 at 14:59
  • Also check and clean your home folder ~/Library/LaunchAgents – Finesse Apr 28 '21 at 05:28
  • @kakubei what does "banish forever" mean? Do you mean it will even stop you starting Creative Cloud as an application? Or do you mean it will just prevent autostart forever? I'm happy to eliminate autostart permanently but I may need to run Creative Cloud once in a while to get some documents or resources or something. – NeilG Jul 11 '22 at 10:18
  • @Avishai does "get rid of it permanently" mean get rid of autostart permanently, or stop Creative Cloud from ever starting again? – NeilG Jul 11 '22 at 10:19
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To turn off everything Adobe launches at startup on the Mac you need to both disable its launchd jobs and the Adobe Core Sync extension.

For the Adobe Core Sync extension, it is a Finder Sync extension so you can disable it under System Preferences → Extensions as described in this answer - https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/237585/23876. From what I have seen, you will need to repeat this step after each Adobe Creative Cloud upgrade.

For the launchd jobs, read on. Note that the following will also disable Adobe automatic update checking. So you will need to check for updates from inside one of the Adobe apps or explicitly run Adobe Create Cloud.

Adobe actually puts their launchd job definitions in several places and those places change depending on the Adobe version. Building on @Alan Shutko’s answer, the following will disable them everywhere. You can ignore any “Could not find specified service” warnings. After running, reboot to enjoy an Adobe free launch (until you actually run an Adobe product).

launchctl unload -w {,~}/Library/LaunchAgents/com.adobe.*.plist
sudo launchctl unload -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.adobe.*.plist

As background, launchctl unload -w disables each service in the override database. launchd will follow the override database entry even if the job definition (e.g. /Library/LaunchAgents/com.adobe.AdobeCreativeCloud.plist) is marked as enabled. The override database is on a per user basis. LaunchDaemon jobs are run as root so we use sudo to disable them for the root user.

From what I have seen so far, Adobe installs do not update the override database, so you shouldn't need to run the commands again after an Adobe install (unless they introduce another job). Please comment if someone does see Adobe touching the override database.

For more information on launchd, the launchd Tutorial is a great overview on launchd jobs. And LaunchControl is a good tool for working with launchd jobs. LaunchControl is a paid app, but the trial version supports viewing them. Be sure to enable tooltips so you can see the override database values.

studgeek
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    Thanks for this! Does unloading these have any effect on using their software? – Colin Marshall Nov 29 '19 at 19:15
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    Thanks, this is the most complete and up-to-date answer for this question! – hyperknot Jan 15 '20 at 16:01
  • In the commands you provided, what does {,~} do? – ma1234 May 28 '23 at 00:39
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    @ma1234 The string ‘’’{,~}’’’ defines a set of comma separated prefixes for the string that follows. In this case, the prefixes are nothing and tilde which is shorthand for the user’s home directory. The list in curly braces is handy when you want to generate a set of strings with common components. For the brave, they can be nested. – dlu Sep 08 '23 at 04:21
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  1. Click on the menu bar icon.

  2. Click the ellipsis icon at the top-right.

  3. Select “Preferences” ellipsis menu

  4. Uncheck “Launch at login”.

    preferences

  5. Note: The “Preferences” option does not appear until you log in to Creative Cloud.

Tuesday
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    What a scummy application to make you accept the terms and login before disabling it –  Mar 05 '15 at 15:47
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    Preferences are no longer even there in Creative Cloud. Adobe is getting worse every day! – kakubei Apr 24 '15 at 14:47
  • @kakubei, I'm not sure what you're seeing, but I'm using the latest version and the option is still there. I just updated my answer to show how it looks now. – Tuesday Apr 24 '15 at 18:23
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    That's interesting, on my machine I got nothing at all. – kakubei Apr 28 '15 at 09:09
  • @andrewtweber it's simple, they want you to have an account so much. – ivkremer Oct 28 '15 at 10:36
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    The 'Launch at login' only apply to the menulet UI. Check your Activity Monitor and you will see there are bunch of background Creative Cloud still leaching your resources. – DazChong Dec 16 '15 at 03:25
  • @DazChong is correct. Is there any way to disable these extra processes? – Wildcard Oct 20 '16 at 17:57
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    I created a Gist for a bash script. Just download it and run it. Feel free to add more processes to it in the future: https://gist.github.com/WadeShuler/670a281c1c29ab1aebb94a21798db155 – Wade Apr 25 '17 at 20:49
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    Unfortunately, unchecking "Launch at login" does nothing to stop this app from running at startup anyway. Why have an option if it's not going to be respected? – OMA Jan 04 '19 at 12:45
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    This doesn't actually stop it from running, it only removes it from the menu bar. – moof2k Apr 23 '21 at 00:04
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I'm currently using this set of commands—the wildcard answer will be a bit more future-proof if Adobe adds more services, but:

  1. Apple is shifting to having these services embedded inside app bundles, so new services added by Adobe may not appear in the usual /Library/Launch*/ paths but still have the same infuriating launch-at-login behavior and
  2. this answer lets you target a single user (if you have multiple users on your machine) for the Creative Cloud UI and sync daemon, should you wish to leave them in place for another person.
sudo launchctl disable system/com.adobe.acc.installer.v2
sudo launchctl disable system/com.adobe.acc.installer
sudo launchctl disable system/Adobe_Genuine_Software_Integrity_Service
sudo launchctl disable system/com.adobe.AdobeCreativeCloud
sudo launchctl disable system/com.adobe.agsservice
launchctl disable gui/$(id -u)/com.adobe.acc.AdobeCreativeCloud.2416
launchctl disable gui/$(id -u)/com.adobe.accmac.2256
launchctl disable gui/$(id -u)/com.adobe.CCXProcess.2252
launchctl disable gui/$(id -u)/com.adobe.CreativeCloud
launchctl disable gui/$(id -u)/com.adobe.CCLibrary.4032
launchctl disable gui/$(id -u)/com.adobe.AdobeCreativeCloud
Phil Calvin
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