Acrobat Pro is very slow on my Mac

I have been suffering from ABSURDLY SLOW performance using the current Adobe Creative Suite on my Sequoia 15.7.5 system.  After reviewing some of the usual time-wasting “Tech Support” content on this, I realized that disabling the useless “Generative AI” features drastically improved my Acrobat performance.

What is to be done about Photoshop and the dreaded Creative Cloud app (which I try to never launch except when updating) remains to be determined.  But the crippling performance issues associated with “Generative AI” are incontestable.

Hi Umairwaris21,

Thank you for reaching out, and sorry to hear about your experience.

We understand how frustrating it can be when Acrobat Pro becomes slow, especially when even simple tasks take longer than expected. While performance can vary based on system configuration and document complexity, there are few troubleshooting steps you can try:

1. Ensure Acrobat is up to date. Go to Help > Check for Updates. If there is any update available, install it. 

2. Make sure your macOS version is compatible with the current installed Acrobat version, and that macOS itself is up to date. 

3. Disable unnecessary background features. Go to Acrobat > Preferences > General and disable options you don’t use frequently, such as:

   • “Show online storage when opening files”

   • “Automatically install updates” (you can still update manually)

4. Try disable the protected mode to test: Under Preferences > Security (Enhanced), temporarily disable Protected Mode to test whether it impacts performance (re‑enable it afterward if there’s no improvement).

5. Turn off GPU acceleration (if enabled): Go to Preferences > Page Display and uncheck Use Graphics Processor, then restart Acrobat. On some Mac systems, this can significantly improve responsiveness.

6. Reset Acrobat preferences: You can reset them by launching Acrobat while holding Shift + Option + Command, then confirming the reset when prompted.

7. Reboot the Mac and close other heavy apps: Limited system memory or background apps (browsers, sync tools, screen recorders) can noticeably impact Acrobat performance.

If the above steps do not help, we suggest reinstalling the application once using the steps suggested below:

1. Remove the application and run the cleaner tool (https://adobe.ly/4w2xL75). Empty the trash folder.

2. Reboot the machine. 

3. Install Adobe Acrobat from the following page: https://adobe.ly/4cH6Sho. 

Let us know how it goes.

Thanks,

Meenakshi