Adobe Pro is using 90% (of 32 GB) RAM when managing sites

I'm having the exact same problem which is preventing me from processing work documents that are about ~400 pages in size on average. RAM usage is fine doing anything else other than "organize pages" and loading all the page thumbnails. Usage climbs to around 3800 MB before the app starts bugging out and telling me it's run out of memory. Quite hard to work with. 

Hi @timo_1300,

Thanks for flagging this. That level of memory consumption is definitely not expected behavior. We’d like to investigate this further, and to do that, we’ll need a bit more diagnostic information from your system.

Try the suggestions:

Please try the following steps while also collecting logs that will help us pinpoint the issue:

 1. Collect Acrobat Diagnostic Logs:

On Windows:

1. Open Acrobat
2.  Go to Help > Debug Assistant or download Diagnostic Assistant manually from here: https://adobe.ly/443XpeA, ensure advanced logging is checked
3. Reproduce the issue — e.g., manage sites until memory spikes
4. Share the Log ID

On macOS:

• Open Acrobat > Help > Adobe Acrobat Pro > Collect Support Logs 

• Or use Activity Monitor > Sample Process while Acrobat is using excessive memory

2.  Collect System Memory Snapshot (Optional but Helpful):

Windows:

• Open Task Manager > Performance > Memory and take a screenshot when Acrobat hits high usage

• Also, check AcroCEF.exe and any background Adobe-related services under “Processes”

macOS:

• Use Activity Monitor, select Adobe Acrobat Pro, then click the “Sample Process” button

• Save the sample log for upload

3. Clear Temporary Files & Reset Preferences:

• Close Acrobat

• Navigate to: C:\Users\<YourName>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Acrobat\<Version>

• Rename the folder to Acrobat_backup

• Restart Acrobat (this resets user settings — let us know if you’d like to restore custom settings afterward)

4. Turn off Online Storage Integration (as a test):

If you’re connected to Document Cloud or SharePoint:

• Go to Edit > Preferences - Keyboard shortcut (Win Ctrl + K , mac Cmd + K ) > General 

• Disable options like:

  • “Show online storage when opening files”

  • “Show online storage when saving files”

   

• Restart Acrobat

This can sometimes reduce load from network calls and authentication processes tied to remote repositories.

Once You’ve Collected the Logs:

Please reply here. We’ll escalate this internally with engineering and get back to you with a more tailored fix. Thanks again for your patience as we work through this.

@timo_1300 I know exactly how you feel. And no, you don't need to change apps. 

The problem you're experiencing with Adobe Acrobat consuming nearly 90% of your system's RAM, points to corrupted user preferences or corrupted cache files that Acrobat builds up over time. When you reinstall, these specific user-specific files are often left behind, leading to the problem reappearing once new corrupted data is generated or old corrupted data starts interfering again. Acrobat relies heavily on cached data for previews and optimized performance, and if this cache or its preference files become damaged, the application can behave erratically, including inefficiently allocating and releasing memory.

To resolve this, you need to perform a thorough manual reset of Acrobat's preferences and cache files (instructions for which are specific to your operating system and typically involve deleting or renaming certain folders in your user's AppData/Library directories), which goes beyond a standard software reinstallation. This will force Acrobat to rebuild its internal settings and cache from scratch, often resolving such persistent memory leaks and performance issues.

I use a MacBook, and Apple even suggested to remove the apps preferences. I actually removed all thepreferences folder. I was leery, so, I made a copy of the folder just in case; deleted the preferences. Deleted the trash. Restarted my whole computer as the restart will create new preferences. Guess what, I had over a 1 gig of space used for my preferences, and it's now 398kb!