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DavydKruhliak
DavydKruhliak
Participant
January 29, 2026

Unable to manage apps in Creative Cloud – “IT administrator permission required” on personal account

  • January 29, 2026
  • 2 replies
  • 230 views

Creative Cloud says “No access to manage apps – IT administrator permission required” on a personal account (macOS Tahoe)

Hi everyone,

I’m running into a very frustrating issue with Adobe Creative Cloud and I’m hoping someone here has seen this before.

I’m getting the following message in Creative Cloud:

 

“You do not have access to manage apps. You might need to request permission from your IT administrator to get access to manage apps.”

 

The problem is — this is not a business, teams, or enterprise account.

 

Account details

  • Account type: Personal Adobe ID

  • Plan: Creative Cloud Photography Plan

  • Subscription: active and paid

  • The same account works perfectly on another Mac (Photoshop is installed and runs fine there)

 

What’s happening

  • On my second Mac, the Apps tab is disabled

  • I can’t install Photoshop or any other Creative Cloud apps

  • Creative Cloud behaves as if the account is managed by an IT admin, which is not the case

 

What I already tried

I went through pretty much every solution suggested online:

 

  • Signed out and back in to Creative Cloud

  • Fully signed out of Creative Cloud on the other Mac

  • Ended all active sessions so this is the only logged-in device

  • Completely uninstalled Creative Cloud

  • Used the Adobe Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool

  • Reinstalled Creative Cloud from scratch

  • Manually deleted Adobe folders:

~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/OOBE
/Library/Application Support/Adobe/OOBE

  • Restarted multiple times

  • Checked macOS privacy permissions (Full Disk Access, etc.)

 

Config file confusion

Many guides mention fixing this by editing or deleting a config file (like config.xml) inside the OOBE folder.

 

On my system:

  • There is no config file

  • There is no config folder at all

  • The files mentioned in those tutorials simply don’t exist

System info

  • Mac: Apple Silicon (M1)

  • OS: macOS Tahoe 26.2

Summary

  • This is a personal account, not managed by IT

  • License is valid and confirmed

  • Account is logged in on only one computer

  • All standard fixes don’t work

  • Issue happens only on this Mac (macOS Tahoe 26.2)

 

 

If anyone has found a workaround for this or knows whether this is a macOS Tahoe compatibility issue, I’d really appreciate any insights.

 

Thanks in advance!

    2 replies

    A
    Community Manager
    Anshul_NautiyalCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    February 2, 2026

    Hi ​@DavydKruhliak 

    Thanks for reaching out and for sharing the detailed troubleshooting you’ve already performed.

    Since you have already used the Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool and completed a full reinstall, the behavior you’re seeing is not typically caused by licensing, permissions, or a simple app corruption.

    The next step I’d recommend is to check whether this is related to the current macOS user profile.

     

    Step 1 — Check whether this is user-profile specific

    Please create a new macOS user profile on the affected Mac and install Creative Cloud there. This helps confirm whether the issue is tied to the current user profile or system-wide.

    Apple guide:https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/mac-help/mchl3e281fc9/mac

     

    Step 2 — Run Disk Utility First Aid

    Run First Aid using Disk Utility to rule out any file system inconsistencies:

     

     

    Step 3 —  If the issue persists in the new profile, please reset the Adobe device provisioning folders:

    Quit Creative Cloud completely.

    Open Terminal and run:

    sudo rm -rf "/Library/Application Support/Adobe/SLStore"
    sudo rm -rf "/Library/Application Support/Adobe/SLCache"
    sudo rm -rf "/Library/Application Support/Adobe/OOBE"
    rm -rf "~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/OOBE"


    Restart the Mac.

    Reinstall Creative Cloud and sign in again.


    After completing these steps, the Apps tab should become available again.

    Please let us know the outcome, and we’ll be happy to help further if needed.

    Regards,
    ^AN

    kglad
    Community Expert
    kgladCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    January 29, 2026

    could someone else have used your problematic computer?

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