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Kaike
Participant
October 29, 2025
Question

Illustrator Crashing Everytime when open in Mac OS

  • October 29, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 136 views

I have a MacBook Pro M4 Pro, and since version 29.8.2, Illustrator always crashes when I open it. Only Illustrator crashes—nothing else. I thought the problem might be the popup/modal that displays the latest product features, but it seems that's not the issue.

I don't know what to do since it seems I'm not the only one having this problem, and yet Adobe isn't doing their job to update the program without bugs and crashes.

2 replies

Carlos neitzke
Participant
February 8, 2026

Hi, I'm from Brazil and I'm experiencing the same problem. Were you able to solve it? Could you contact me via WhatsApp? +5565999469213

Bill Silbert
Community Expert
Community Expert
February 8, 2026

It is possible that this issue is the result of corruption within the program. After an update it is always the best course to reset your Illustrator preferences. This process ensures that the new version of the program begins its run with default preferences and is not affected by preferences that were aligned to the code of the earlier version.

To reset preferences:

For Macintosh Users: The User Library folder in which Illustrator’s preferences are stored is hidden by default on most Macintoshes. To access it make sure that Illustrator is closed and click on the desktop to launch a Finder Window (Command-N).With this window in column view follow the path User>Home folder (it’s the folder with an icon that looks like a house—it may have the user’s name rather than “Home”) and click on the Home folder. With the Option Key pressed choose Library from the Finder Go Menu. “Library” will now appear within the Home folder. Within the Library folder find the folder called Preferences and within it find the folder called “Adobe Illustrator <Version #> Settings” (earlier versions of Illustrator might just say “Adobe Illustrator”) and the file called “com.adobe.Illustrator.plist” and delete both that folder and that file. When Illustrator is next launched it will create new preference files and the program will be restored to its defaults.

For Windows Users: You can try the quick way of resetting on a PC which is to hold down Ctrl + Alt + Shift when launching Illustrator and respond affirmatively when asked if you want to reset. There have been some recent reports that the window asking if you want to reset is not popping up but that the prefs are being reset anyway. If this works great but if it doesn’t you may have to manually delete them.

To do so:

On Windows 7 and above the preference files are hidden. To find them go to the Control Panel and open Folder Options and then click the View tab. Then select “Show hidden files and folders” or “Show hidden files, folders or drive options” in Advanced Settings. Then delete (or rename) the folder at the end of this path: C:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator [version number]\ Settings\<Language>. Make sure that Illustrator is closed when you do this. When you relaunch the program it will create  new preference files and the program will be at its default settings.

The advantage of manually deleting preference files is that after you’ve reset up the program (make sure that no document window is open) to your liking, you can create copies of your personalized “mint” preference files (make sure that you quit the program before copying them—that finalizes your customization) and use them in the future to replace any corrupt versions you may need to delete.

Abhishek Rao
Community Manager
Community Manager
October 29, 2025

Hi @9707546,

 

Thanks for sharing the details. Could you please confirm which version of macOS you're using on your M4 Pro MacBook? I'd recommend manually resetting Illustrator preferences and testing again. Ref: https://adobe.ly/4oirj7M. If the app still crashes on launch, please try starting your Mac in Safe Mode and then launch Illustrator to check if any third-party plugin or extension might be causing a conflict: https://adobe.ly/4331no0.

If it continues to crash, please follow the troubleshooting steps mentioned here: https://adobe.ly/3LxPAIe.

I also checked for any crash reports submitted using your community email but couldn't find any. Please submit a new crash report and share your email address with me via DM, so I can locate the logs and review them. You can find the steps here: https://adobe.ly/4oeb8Iq.

Lastly, the latest version of Illustrator is 30.0, so please try updating to it and see if the issue persists.

 

Looking forward to your update.

Abhishek