Participating Frequently

Answered

How to stop Adobe ABUSING Windows notifications for advertisement?

15 replies
1240 views
Translate

Adobe Reader isn’t even OPEN, yet I still receive “notifications” by Adobe advertising some functionality like signing documents. What the actual F*CK, Adobe? The only other company I know that would show this level of audacity would be AutoCAD - and Microslop themselves, of course.

That’s one way to get blocked from EVER showing me notifications again, Adobe.
I’d say it’s one way to lose me as a customer as well, but that ship has sailed LONG ago and I only use this sorry excuse of a PDF reader because my company forces me to.

Meenakshi NegiCorrect answer

Community Manager

Hi David Smiley,

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

Typically, these notifications will appear three times before being removed if you close them out. Could you please confirm if the notifications open each time you access the PDF in Acrobat? Additionally, please provide the version numbers of Acrobat and your currently installed operating system.

We will coordinate with our team to see if there is a setting available to disable these notifications.

Thanks,

Meenakshi

S

stephanv71885847

Participant

Adobe has gone way too far in promoting its products. First of all, Adobe has already completely gone overboard with the way you have to pay for their software nowadays via monthly or annual licenses just to use their products. But now I'm actually getting promotional notifications from Adobe Acrobat Reader in my Windows notifications... This is the point where I've decided to permanently remove this one from my computer as well!

Translate

P

psmedus

Participant

How about I quit using Acrobat? Too many instructions to delete “free trial” notifications. I will never use acrobat again. Greedy greedy greedy. Adobe installed the “Wizard of Oz” intructions: tap the red shoes three times and repeat after me: There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home. It didn’t work. Just like the puzzle to close Adobe three times, and then try those other instructions. And they actually pay people to do that. Greedy greedy greedy.

Translate

D

David Smiley

Participant

Every time I open a pdf in Acrobat, I get a notification, as per attached. Mac OS 26.5.1. Acrobat Version 2026.001.21691. “Show me message when I launch Acrobat” is unchecked. Help! Thanks.

Translate

Meenakshi Negi

Correct answer

Community Manager

Hi David Smiley,

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

Typically, these notifications will appear three times before being removed if you close them out. Could you please confirm if the notifications open each time you access the PDF in Acrobat? Additionally, please provide the version numbers of Acrobat and your currently installed operating system.

We will coordinate with our team to see if there is a setting available to disable these notifications.

Thanks,

Meenakshi

Translate

D

David Smiley

Participant

It was the three times scenario. The notifications stopped. Thanks!!!

Translate

Amal Jaiswal

Community Manager

Hi there

Hope you are doing well, and thanks for reaching out. We are sorry for the trouble you are experiencing.

Please try the step below and see if that works:

Open Acrobat and go to Preferences (Ctrl, Cmd+K) > General > Under messages from Adobe, Uncheck ‘Show me messages when I launch Adobe Acrobat’ > Click OK and reboot the application, and see if that works.

Since your company manages your Acrobat installation, some of these notification preferences may be set centrally via Group Policy or the Adobe Customization Wizard. If the settings above are greyed out or keep reverting, your IT team can suppress promotional notifications entirely using the registry key settings.

Hope this information will help

~Amal

Translate

F

fire_frogAuthor

Participating Frequently

That box has been unchecked ages ago. Also, as I wrote above, Adobe was neither running nor just launched (which SHOULD be the only case the preference you specified is relevant), so there should be absolutely ZERO possibility to trigger ANY notification at all - especially if it is, as I mentioned, ADVERTISEMENT that’s being pushed through WINDOWS notifications. This is plain disgusting (not that a company like Adobe would care).

I’m sorry, and I’m trying not to “shoot” you as the messenger, but no, your reply did not help at all.

Translate

Amal Jaiswal

Community Manager

Hi there,

I understand your frustration, so nothing to be sorry about😊

Even when Acrobat is closed, a background service called Adobe Acrobat Update Service keeps running and can fire these notifications. To disable it:

Press Win + R, type services.msc, and hit Enter
Find Adobe Acrobat Update Service in the list
Right-click it > Properties > set Startup type to Manual (or Disabled if you're on a managed machine and updates are handled by IT)
Click Stop to kill it immediately, then OK

This stops Adobe from running anything in the background when Acrobat isn't open.

You may also try to block it directly in Windows too:

Go to Settings > System > Notifications
Scroll down to the app list and find Adobe Acrobat
Toggle notifications Off

Let us how it goes.

~Amal

Translate

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.