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mpypsd
mpypsd
Participant
January 29, 2026
Answered

Help! My university cancelled Adobe without warning and all my Adobe Scan docs are gone!

  • January 29, 2026
  • 2 replies
  • 46 views

Hi everyone! I am a PhD candidate at a U.S. university; due to budget cuts they unexpectedly cancelled the Adobe suite associated with my email address. This is unfortunate for a variety of reasons, but the most upsetting consequence so far has been that all my archival documents for my dissertation, which were organized and saved in the Adobe Scan app, no longer seem to be available. Every time I try to log on with my university account, it says “the Adobe ID doesn’t have access to Adobe cloud storage. Please sign in with a different account or create a new free account.” I am desperate, but can’t find a way to speak with a human at Adobe that might be able to help me. Please advise! Thank you.

    Correct answer creative explorer

    ​@mpypsd do you still have access to your school university’s email? Did you have a back-up email associated to that account? The reason I am asking is I I also work at a higher education (poly institute), and my school email/back-up email also had Adobe apps and files, but the account got lost in the shuffle when 2026 rolled over in the new year. Recently, I had to access my account (opened it Incognito-as suggested by a colleague), and I was able to see past files from 6 months ago (double whew!!!). Even if the university cancelled Adobe, as long as there is an email that is still accessible, your account would have been pushed to a free account (granted, there is th storagre issue too. A school account, you are likely going from 100 gigs to 5 gigs (mine is—luckily many of my students work was shared!). The scanned PDF files are stored on the Adobe Document Cloud. Check to see if your files are still in the folders: 
    https://www.adobe.com/files — if by chance you still out o luck,  would talk to the university IT department if they can at last give a temporary license to get your files at least. I would do it sooner than later, and they may only give you 12-24 hours to do it. So, make sure you have a Google Drive, One Drive or DropBox with ample space, and upload as soon as you can/ Actually, I would do two uploads. One to the cloud, and one to computer or a flash drive. 

    2 replies

    nishthagupta
    nishthagupta
    Participant
    February 3, 2026

    Same thing has happened with me. So basically I scanned some really importat documents in my adobe scan. Then my university diabled and deleted the account without a warning. I lost all the documents. The documents once flashed on my personal account, but wouldn’t show up again. Also i tried what you have shared already. But there is no email linked to my university account. 
    Please help

    creative explorer
    Community Expert
    creative explorerCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 3, 2026

    ​@nishthagupta there has to be an email link to your Adobe account is because that’s how you log into your Adobe products. Without that, you can’t be scanning. 

    m
    creative explorer
    Community Expert
    creative explorerCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
    Community Expert
    January 30, 2026

    ​@mpypsd do you still have access to your school university’s email? Did you have a back-up email associated to that account? The reason I am asking is I I also work at a higher education (poly institute), and my school email/back-up email also had Adobe apps and files, but the account got lost in the shuffle when 2026 rolled over in the new year. Recently, I had to access my account (opened it Incognito-as suggested by a colleague), and I was able to see past files from 6 months ago (double whew!!!). Even if the university cancelled Adobe, as long as there is an email that is still accessible, your account would have been pushed to a free account (granted, there is th storagre issue too. A school account, you are likely going from 100 gigs to 5 gigs (mine is—luckily many of my students work was shared!). The scanned PDF files are stored on the Adobe Document Cloud. Check to see if your files are still in the folders: 
    https://www.adobe.com/files — if by chance you still out o luck,  would talk to the university IT department if they can at last give a temporary license to get your files at least. I would do it sooner than later, and they may only give you 12-24 hours to do it. So, make sure you have a Google Drive, One Drive or DropBox with ample space, and upload as soon as you can/ Actually, I would do two uploads. One to the cloud, and one to computer or a flash drive. 

    m
      mpypsd
      mpypsdAuthor
      Participant
      January 30, 2026

      ​@creative explorer you are a total genius, an absolute angel, and you are going straight to the top of my dissertation acknowledgements. I did exactly what you suggested, and this worked! I’m slowly downloading everything now, and it seems to be working. I’m not sure everything is there, but definitely at least a good chunk is salvageable. Thank you so much.

        creative explorer
        Community Expert
        creative explorerCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        January 31, 2026

        ​@mpypsd gee now, maybe I should give you my real name 🤣

        m
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