Downloads won't open in Acrobat

Question

I have never had issues opening downloads in Acrobat before, but all of a sudden I'm getting the following message when I try:

The operation could not be completed as Adobe Acrobat doesn't have permission to access: ~/Downloads/.

Launch privacy settings to grant access?

When I go into privacy settings, "Downloads" doesn't even show up as an option for me to grant permission for. The only option is iCloud. Where did the other options go? My only workaround so far has been to drop all of my downloads into my iCloud folder, but this is really inconvenient. It's weird that the same thing seems to be the case for Illustrator as well with only "Desktop" as an option.

I'm just really confused as to what happened for this to occur and where the downloads option even went. It might just be a computer issue, but I just figured I'd ask and see if this has happened to anyone else.

Meenakshi_Negi · Accepted Answer

Hi Charis99,

Thank you for reaching out, and sorry about the trouble caused.

If Downloads don’t appear under the Privacy settings, it may be because the app hasn’t requested access yet, or macOS didn’t prompt you. Try opening a file from Downloads using File > Open in Acrobat to trigger the prompt.

If that does not work, grant Full Disk Access and see if that works:

- Go to System Settings > Privacy & Security > Privacy > Full Disk Access
- Click the + button and add Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Illustrator
- Restart the apps after making changes.

Let us know how it goes.

Thanks,

Meenakshi

Charis99 · Answer

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