Creative Cloud does not install apps on my external SSD - MacOS

Forum|Forum|1 day ago
March 1, 2026
2 replies
28 views

Recently I bought a Mac Mini to be able to work on Adobe applications. I have an external SSD that I used on my old MacBook M1. I uninstalled the Adobe applications on the SSD. Then, I downloaded Creative Cloud on my Mini, but when selecting the installation path of my SSD in Creative Cloud, for some reason Creative Cloud continues to install its apps on my Mac's internal storage.

Yes, my SSD is in APFS format

D Fosse

Community Expert

There really isn’t much point in doing this. You only save a few GB.

A large part of the installation will go to your user account on the system drive regardless. You can’t change that. However, caches and previews go to your user account by default. These can be redirected, and moving these to another drive is much more effective and will free up a lot more disk space. Lightroom previews just need to sit beside the catalog, wherever that is. But for the other apps, you choose in preferences/settings.

Even a simple thing like running disk cleanup in your operating system may free up a lot more space than the Adobe apps’ program files.

AxelMatt

Community Expert

You can install the Creative Cloud applicationson a external drive. But the Creative Clour Desktiop client MUST be installed on the internal drive.

My System: Intel i7-8700K - 64GB RAM - NVidia Geforce RTX 3060 - Windows 11 Pro 25H2 -- LR-Classic 15 - Photoshop 27 - Nik Collection 8 - PureRAW 5 - Topaz Photo

rodriguesnunesrodrigoAuthor

Participating Frequently

Yes, I installed CC on my Mac's internal storage, but when setting the installation location for Pr, AE, etc... to my SSD, it keeps installing the apps on the internal storage.

AxelMatt

Community Expert

To change the installation location see here:

Change install location of your Creative Cloud apps

Be aware: some folders/files of the application were installed on the internal drive anyway.

My System: Intel i7-8700K - 64GB RAM - NVidia Geforce RTX 3060 - Windows 11 Pro 25H2 -- LR-Classic 15 - Photoshop 27 - Nik Collection 8 - PureRAW 5 - Topaz Photo

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