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Answered

Photoshop uninstalled itself on my computer.

Forum|Forum|5 months ago
March 6, 2026
23 replies
575 views

I tried opening Photoshop this morning but I kept getting a message that it cannot open. I went to my Creative Cloud and it said Photoshop was not installed. It directed me to use Photoshop on the web browser. I downloaded the DMG file and opened it (working on a MAC) and it now works but ALL my Actions, Presets and Brushes from years of collection are gone. How do I get them back?

Correct answer AxelMatt

... I have now reinstalled Photoshop but all my Presets, Actions and Brushes are gone.

Navigate to folder Users/[user name]/Library/Preferences

Which subfolder do you see here?

In any case there must be one folder named Adobe Photoshop [version] Settings

Is there another Settings folder? If yes, it’s possible that there you’ll find your presets, actions etc.

Note: The user Library folder is hidden by default.

To access files in the hidden user Library folder, see here for how to access hidden user library files.

https://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/global/access-hidden-user-library-files.html

Do you have a backup of your Settings folder? In this case you can restore your personal data.

For more informations see here: Backup and restore preferences

echoh33156725

Participating Frequently

Just had this happen! I was working in PS this morning, closed it, had a meeting, then came back and it was gone. I would never uninstall by myself, I use it every day. This has never happened before. Why/how is it a thing?? Thankfully able to reinstall easily, but yikes.

J E L

Community Expert

@echoh33156725, you are not alone! I had the same thing happen to me yesterday (Windows 11 Pro; Photoshop 27.9 Release). I think it does need to be logged as a bug.

I use the same steps every day to open and close apps. I launched the Creative Cloud Desktop app and noticed the Photoshop icon was not in the top tray where it always is. Instead, it showed it needed to be installed. I used the Windows start menu to launch Photoshop from a shortcut, and it opened normally. So, it only appeared to be uninstalled.

I closed everything and relaunched Creative Cloud Desktop. Photoshop still appeared to be uninstalled. I clicked the install button. There wasn’t any type of normal installation process. The icon appeared again in the top tray, grayed out, and remained that way for a minute or two. Now it’s back to normal.

echoh33156725

Participating Frequently

Thank you!! I am so tired of reading “thats not possible” -- clearly it is. Very frustrating to have a personal experience dismissed like that by a “community expert”. Theres a bug here for sure. I also shared a screenshot below in my comments.

J

john.spijkers

Participant

Same here. After an Apple OS update Photoshop and Photoshop Beta were gone. I re-installed Photoshop, but all my preferences were gone. Photoshop Beta stopped at 88% and did not want to install. Recently there was another OS update and again Photoshop was uninstalled. Re-installed it again. Photoshop Beta still does not want to install.

I think I’m going to do a clean Mac OS install. This is very irritating (to say the least).

N

Nicholas30341658h3l0

Participating Frequently

try this to get your preferences back: I followed the instructions here by AxelMatt and got all my presets back.

N

Nicholas30341658h3l0

Participating Frequently

dealing with this right now, my photoshop will not open and I checked the cloud and it said I need to download and install it.

A

AxelMatt

Community Expert

dealing with this right now, my photoshop will not open and I checked the cloud and it said I need to download and install it.

I’ve never heard that the application deinstalling by itself. What has been done/changed on system before the issue occur?

One possible point described @D Fosse here:

Which error message do you get?

What happened if you try to reinstall PS.

My System: Intel i7-8700K - 64GB RAM - NVidia Geforce RTX 3060 - Windows 11 Pro 25H2 -- LR-Classic 15 - Photoshop 27 - Nik Collection 9 - PureRAW 6 - Topaz Photo AI

N

Nicholas30341658h3l0

Participating Frequently

cannot be 100% confident, but believe the message was “photoshop cannot open” when clicking the icon on my dock. went immediately to the cloud to see if maybe the app was updating, but instead the only option for Photoshop was install.

I've lost all my presets. I keep all my files in the cloud but don’t use Time Machine

pamela winterAuthor

Participant

Hello and thank you for a very plausible explanation. I went to my Time Machine backups and reset the computer to 48 hours prior to the when the problem occurred, reset the corrupted disk error by changing to the default settings and updated the OS.

Claire H.

Community Manager

Hi @pamela winter, Just checking in, did that fix your issue? Let us know how things are going. Happy to keep troubleshooting with you if needed. Thanks! ^CH

D Fosse

Community Expert

There is no way Photoshop can uninstall itself. An uninstall needs to be user iniated through several steps.

The only theoretical possibility I can think of is this: automatic updates is enabled in the CC app, but the hardware doesn’t meet the system requirements for the update.That will abort the update, but unfortunately, the installer is set to remove old versions before installing the new. So it’s conceivable that the hardware check somehow skipped a step and removed the old while not installing a new.

It’s much more likely that a problem occurred that prevented the app from opening. And the most likely issue would be a relatively trivial thing like corrupt preferences, which is easily reset.

Either way, this is just speculation until we see screenshots of the actual error messages you got.

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

Dag, did you have 22.2 installed. That was quietly taken away a while back with no warning that I saw. I recently discovered Dimension which has way easier to use 3D effects than Photoshop’s. It’s about eight years old, so embarrassing myopia (tunnel vision) on my part.

pamela winterAuthor

Participant

Exact message said “photoshop cannot open” I rebooted yesterday afternoon because my system was slow. Photoshop worked fine prior to that. I have now reinstalled Photoshop but all my Presets, Actions and Brushes are gone.

A

AxelMatt

Correct answer

Community Expert

... I have now reinstalled Photoshop but all my Presets, Actions and Brushes are gone.

Navigate to folder Users/[user name]/Library/Preferences

Which subfolder do you see here?

In any case there must be one folder named Adobe Photoshop [version] Settings

Is there another Settings folder? If yes, it’s possible that there you’ll find your presets, actions etc.

Note: The user Library folder is hidden by default.

To access files in the hidden user Library folder, see here for how to access hidden user library files.

https://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/global/access-hidden-user-library-files.html

Do you have a backup of your Settings folder? In this case you can restore your personal data.

For more informations see here: Backup and restore preferences

My System: Intel i7-8700K - 64GB RAM - NVidia Geforce RTX 3060 - Windows 11 Pro 25H2 -- LR-Classic 15 - Photoshop 27 - Nik Collection 9 - PureRAW 6 - Topaz Photo AI

pamela winterAuthor

Participant

Thank you for your assistance. I simply went to my Time Machine backup for the most current uncorrupted copy and reinstalled the software. I appreciate your professional help!

A

AxelMatt

Community Expert

@pamela winter

… I went to my Creative Cloud and it said Photoshop was not installed. ...

I’ve never heard the a allpication is deinstalled by itself. What has been done/changed on system before the issue occur?

… but I kept getting a message that it cannot open. ...

What’s the exact error message?

My System: Intel i7-8700K - 64GB RAM - NVidia Geforce RTX 3060 - Windows 11 Pro 25H2 -- LR-Classic 15 - Photoshop 27 - Nik Collection 9 - PureRAW 6 - Topaz Photo AI

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