My adobe Acrobat DC Pro installation using 55.9GB of disk space?

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
March 19, 2019
3 replies
29526 views

Hello all,

I came across this while checking my programs installed. I have been having issues opening some PDF files from a Cloud service (BOX.com), after double-clicking the file Adobe Acrobat would open (the program) but it will not show the file I just opened. Now checking the installation is it using up 55GB of HDD space. any ideas or solutions of this, it is very abnormal for a simple adobe installation. How do I clear up this amount of space without uninstalling.

Please let me know any reasons and solutions.

Thank You all,

Correct answer Dov Isaacs

Windows doesn't display the correct information there.

On behalf of Adobe …

I can confirm that the space usage reported by Microsoft for applications in its Program and Features control panel is quite inaccurate. In reality, a full installation of Acrobat Pro DC including all executables, work areas, fonts, etc. adds up to less than 3GB in total! (Microsoft is aware of the problem and it doesn't just affect Adobe applications!)

- Dov

C

Cent Alexander

Participant

Mine shows 113GB in size. Holy Cow!

T

TomH834

Participant

I found the real answer. The auto-updater keeps a copy of all of the past version installers. Windows knows Acrobat created them so it treats them as part of the application's disk usage.

I went into C:\ProgramData\Adobe\ARM\Acrobat_20.012.20048 (you might have a different path for that last bit) and found 20GB of useless old installers. Thought I'd post a real answer on here in case anybody else is looking for how they can free up disk space. Hopefully the Acrobat team add some code to their auto updater that deletes ancient installers because there is no reason to keep so many.

S

Stefen2105

Participant

Finally managed to clean 12GB out of the 28,8 that my adobe was using by deleting the old installers thanks to @TomH834 's post. Any idea how to clean up the rest still far fro the 3 GB that adobe was supposed to be using. @Dov Isaacs sorry but your answers were completely misleading

AnandSri

Legend

Thanks @TomH834 for posting this information; much better advice than what i found elsewhere. I do still have a query and need help. If you or anyone else could please help it would be much appreciated 🙂

I too have the same issue. Supposedly Adobe takes up 8.89GB of my C drive. I followed the advice to check for old installation files at C:\ProgramData\Adobe\ARM . Interestingly, I only have 5 folders ; 2 of which have any data. The first folder is called Acrobat_18.009.20050 with a size of 48.9MB (last modified in 2018). The second folder is called Acrobat_25.001.20630 with a size of 941MB (last modified today). SO my question is: what other tipps do you have? Because even if I delete the first folder entirely because its old, that only delete ca. 50MB for me. And somehow I need to reduce this suposed 8.89GB space Adobe is taking up on my C drive, but dont see what other old instilation files i could delete? Could I delete the second "Acrobat_25.001.20630" folder (see screeshot Adobe1.png attached), or would that just cause problems if I do? plus even if i did it would supposedly only free up less than 1GB of space.

Appreciate any and every constructive help I can get 🙂

Hello @Moser_22531823aqa9

I hope you are doing well. Thanks for sharing the details and for checking the ARM folders; that’s a great first step.

Please note:

About the ARM folders

The folders you found under C:\ProgramData\Adobe\ARM are part of Acrobat’s update mechanism.
The older folder from 2018 can safely be deleted, as you noted.
The newer folders, like: (Acrobat_25.001.20672), (Acrobat_25.001.20630), should not be deleted; they contain current patch/update files that Acrobat may need. Removing it could cause update errors or force a reinstall. If you have the latest folder 25.001.20672, then you can remove the previous folders.

The size you see in Windows isn’t always only from the ARM folders. Acrobat installs across several locations, for example:

- C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Acrobat
- C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe
- C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Adobe and \AppData\Roaming\Adobe
Over time, cached installers, temp files, and logs can build up in these directories.