Participant

Question

Photoshop doesn't work on my new M5 MacBook Pro

Forum|Forum|2 months ago
July 13, 2026
11 replies
211 views

Ever since I got a new M5 MacBook Pro Photoshop either freezes on launch or locks up just as it finishes launching. It's unusable. All I can do is force-quit. I've tried deleting and reinstalling the app (twice) and renamed the prefs folder so it would generate a new one but nothing works.

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

What plugins are you running? As Conrad says, a lot of M5 Mac users are running Photoshop without problems, so you need to find what is different bout your set up.

Try launching Photoshop while holding down the Shift key. That forces it to open without any third party plugins and extensions. If it fixes your issue you can try disabling your plugins one at a time, or search one at a time.

There are 41 million CC subscribers now, so I think we’d be overwhelmed new threads if the issue was common to all M5 Mac users.

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

How did you reset Preferences. The full manual method is more effective.

Scroll down this page a bit to find the manual method

https://helpx.adobe.com/nz/photoshop/desktop/get-started/settings-and-preferences/reset-preferences.html

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Greg Burkett

Participant

Same problem. Yes went backwards v26 but only worked one time. Next day crashed. Ready to cancel subscription this has been going on for a month with no help from Apple or Adobe.

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drewvanAuthor

Participant

@MarekMularczyk Hi Marek, I hadn’t tried that but just did and now Photoshop was able to launch. I opened and resaved a photo. Now, I just wonder what was the problem with the new version and how I will be able to update in the future without going through this every time.

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drewvanAuthor

Participant

And now we’re right back where we were before. Photoshop freezes when I try to open a photo that was just open a few minutes ago. I didn’t even save changes before it locked up.

MarekMularczyk

Community Expert

Which version of Photoshop are you running? Have you tried different version to see if it’s going to work?

Adobe Community ExpertAdobe Certified Professional

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drewvanAuthor

Participant

Photoshop 2026 v27.8.0 — it’s the most current version I can get on Creative Cloud. I tried deleting and reinstalling. Also, cleared out old preferences.

MarekMularczyk

Community Expert

Have you tried the previous version?

Adobe Community ExpertAdobe Certified Professional

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