Acrobat plugin bloat causing freeze

Over the last several updates, one problem has persisted: Acrobat lags until it freezes for several seconds on opening any file — gigabyte-sized print files or a tiny invoice, same result. The file displays, but I can't even manage to click "Print" before it locks up, sometimes for 10, sometimes even up to 60 seconds.

This isn't a machine problem — I can run InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop simultaneously without issue (13600K, NVIDIA GPU, 64GB RAM, NVMe). I can even fire open all those three apps while Acrobat is in its hibernation status (tested). Once Acrobat is open, it's fast — opening, scrolling, editing multiple files is fine. The freeze only happens on a fresh launch/open.

What fixes it (temporarily): Deactivating plugins I don't use — Dropbox integration, Accessibility, etc. — restores performance immediately. But…

• Every update reintroduces the default plugin set, so the fix has to be repeated (this is now like the 5th time or so for me)
• The app doesn't handle the missing plugins gracefully afterward — empty sidebars start appearing, and within a few days performance degrades again anyway
• My current workaround is reinstalling an older version that performs well, until it auto-updates again

Feature request: Let users deactivate plugins from within the app in a way that persists across updates. I'm sure plenty of users rely on Dropbox integration and similar — just not me. Given how often "Acrobat slow" comes up as a search term, a persistent way to trim the plugin load could help a lot of people, not just me alone.

Current Acrobat version: 2026.001.21691 | 64-Bit
Windows 11 Pro version: 26200.8875

Edit: By ‘deactivating’ I mean diving in to C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat DC\Acrobat\plug_ins and simply renaming plugins like “plugin.api.bac”