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Participant
Jul 13, 2026 4:39 AM UTC
Question

Photoshop doesn't work on my new M5 MacBook Pro

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.

15 replies

Le coupain
Participant
Oct 29, 2026 7:48 PM UTC

How about the MCPro M5 max.  Great unit but just trying it out.  So far, no luck.

[email removed as per forum guidelines]

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justlearn
Community Expert
Community Expert
Oct 30, 2026 12:24 AM UTC

​@Le coupain I am using a MacBook Pro M5 Max with 64 gigs of RAM, and I have no issues (knock on wood) with Photoshop with 27.11.0; I am using the Essentials (Default) Workspace. No plugins. Maybe it’s your Performance?
 

 

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Trevor.Dennis
Community Expert
Community Expert
Sep 6, 2026 11:52 PM UTC

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.

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Trevor.Dennis
Community Expert
Community Expert
Sep 6, 2026 11:56 PM UTC

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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Participant
Sep 6, 2026 10:05 PM UTC

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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MarekMularczyk
Community Expert
Community Expert
Sep 22, 2026 9:06 PM UTC

Which version are you trying to run?

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Adobe Community ExpertAdobe Certified Professional
drewvanAuthor
Participant
Jul 14, 2026 9:31 PM UTC

@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
Jul 14, 2026 10:17 PM UTC

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.

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MarekMularczyk
Community Expert
Community Expert
Jul 13, 2026 8:01 AM UTC

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

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Adobe Community ExpertAdobe Certified Professional
drewvanAuthor
Participant
Jul 13, 2026 5:34 PM UTC

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.

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MarekMularczyk
Community Expert
Community Expert
Jul 14, 2026 7:19 AM UTC

Have you tried the previous version?

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