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sarahk10061157
Participant
September 10, 2026
Question

How do I uninstall adobe apps that have been migrated from an intel mac to a silicone mac, so that a fresh install of silicone native versions can be installed., without having to install rosetta?

  • September 10, 2026
  • 4 replies
  • 16 views

I tried several times to download the Adobe Cleaner Tool (from the adobe site), it has either triggered the pop-up ‘do you want to install Rosetta”, or has got stuck at downloading at 45.5% with a pop-up saying “Creative Cloud is taking longer than usual to install. If you choose to restart instead of waiting, you will lose any installation progress“. The only way I could get rid of the install window was to force quit the computer.

 

I tried several times to download the Adobe Creative Cloud Desktop ap (from the adobe site) as a way to uninstall and reinstall, but that also gets stuck downloading at 45.5% with a pop-up window again saying “Creative Cloud is taking longer than usual to install. If you choose to restart instead of waiting, you will lose any installation progress”, and again the only way I could get rid of the install window was to force quit the computer.

 

I removed these adobe partial installs that were still showing on the Activity Monitor.

 

I deactivated the old intel computer on my adobe account. 

 

I deleted all adobe aps on my computer by moving to trash, as the uninstaller triggered a pop-up saying I needed to install Rosetta to do that.

 

I deleted remaining preference and support folders located in /Library/Application Support/Adobe/ and ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/.

 

I tried to download Creative Cloud Uninstaller, but it triggered the pop-up saying “you need to install Rosetta”

 

I restarted my computer frequently throughout this process.

 

All without resolution - any other ideas?

    4 replies

    leo.r
    Community Expert
    leo.rCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    September 10, 2026

    In addition to all other advice:

    but it triggered the pop-up saying “you need to install Rosetta”


    Maybe let it install Rosetta, which will let you install the uninstaller/cleaner, then run it to uninstall all existing Adobe stuff, then get rid of Rosetta (if you have to), then try to install Creative Cloud again? That’s just a guess, I’m not sure it will work exactly as described.

    kglad
    Community Expert
    kgladCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    September 10, 2026

    you should restore your mac to the time before you migrated.

    sarahk10061157Author
    Participant
    September 10, 2026

    Thank you for your reply, I can see that this would make good sense.  

    So would this scenario make sense

    1. Back up M4 Silicone mac with time machine to an external hard drive.
    2. Restore M4 Silicone mac back to factory settings (I hadn’t really used it before I migrated, and I understand that this will clear all the computer settings I’ve set up, but that feels like a small price to pay for a clean start).
    3. Run migration assistant from the M4 Silicone mac to the external hard drive, but UNCHECK Applications, and only migrate user account, documents & settings, (after checking that other software I use works with M4 Silicone and is also available to download from their respective websites - for example I use a one time purchase of Microsoft Office for mac, as opposed to a subscription).
    4. Download the latest Silicone-native versions of Adobe (and Microsoft Office).

    Many thanks. 

    leo.r
    Community Expert
    leo.rCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    September 10, 2026

    It could be a good plan, but you won’t know until you try.

    Personally, if I had to set up a brand new Mac (especially for an Intel-to-Silicon transition), I would:

    -Make a clean macOS install (well, normally it wouldn’t be required on a new Mac, but in your case it is)
    -Manually install whatever apps and utilities I need to install
    -Manually copy whatever files I need to copy.

    This way you don’t have to rely on an automated “migration” process which may or may not do everything exactly the way it has to be done (especially with all kinds of manual adjustments of the process you plan to do, which can introduce yet another level of errors and mistakes).

    While a purely manual process may take, potentially, slightly longer, it can also save you hours of correcting the consequences of automated migration, which you already are dealing with.


     

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