Unacceptable memory usage from Adobe apps and processes

[Inélsòre]

I have been an Adobe CC Full Suite user for 5 years, and while that may not appear like a long time, it is certainly something. 

For the first time ever, yesterday, I started to have macOS (14.5) send me messages about my system having run out of application memory, suggesting that I quit something. Trying to keep calm, I launched Activity Monitor, which showed several RED spikes in memory pressure, and a certain Adobe Acrobat (up-to-date as of the date of this post) using 3.86 GB of memory with no document open! 

I quit Acrobat and things resumed working normally. Later in the day, and again today, I launched Illustrator and the message came back. Looking at the list in the Memory tab of Activity Monitor, I noticed how many processes Adobe CC has in there, contributing to an absurd amount of memory used just for... nothing that enhanced the user's experience.

Now for the best part: my machine is an M3 Max MacBook Pro with 2 TB SSD and 36 GB of memory! I have been an Apple user since 2009 and never had I seen that message pop-up, even if I am an user who likes to have tons of apps and windows open at the same time. macOS always managed this perfectly, assuming it was allowed to. 

Never before as today I have been drawn to switch to the Affinity Suite and to some other PDF editor.

No need to explain why all those bloatwares are needed, licensing and syncing, I am already used to that gurgle from Avid. What I, and certainly plenty of users need, is that all those apps and process stop clogging systems with extra things no one asked for, and that they use the appropriate and minimum necessary amount of system resources. 

I am bound by my subscription for another 10 months, but the magic has now faded... 

These are just two examples, from the Utilities folder in /Applications

and from the Shared folder:

Why are these things here? Who gave them permissions to be installed in there? I certainly didn't because I was never asked. 

The only reason keeping me here, honestly, is how amazing the Adobe Community of users has been so far. They, we, all deserve much more.

Thank you

[Amal.]

Hi @Inélsòre 

Hope you are doing well and thanks for reaching out.

Please try to remove the application using the Acrobat cleaner tool https://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobatetk/tools/Labs/cleaner.html, reboot the computer and reinstall the application using the direct link https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/acrobat-dc-downloads.html and see if that helps.

Let us know how it goes.

~Amal

[Inélsòre]

This was a fresh install after having already done that to try and restore the recent document list... 

[Amal.]

Hi there

Acrobat Pro requires 2GB RAM and 2.75GB of hard disk space on MacOS. Please check the help page https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/system-requirements.html  for more information.

~Amal

[Inélsòre]

Have you read my post, @Amal. ?

I have an M3 Max MacBook Pro with 36 GB of memory and a 2 TB SSD which is 80% FREE!

I have uninstalled, restarted, and reinstalled Acrobat.

As soon as I use it, even for small tasks such as Combine File, memory pressure goes into the yellow in Activity Monitor. Even when Acrobat is doing nothing at all, it asks for 3+ GB of memory and the pressure stays in the yellow region. Quit Acrobat and open even Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign at the same time with big documents and the pressure stays in the green region.

My educated guess? This new AI thing is drawing needless resources. 

My less-educated guess? Well... it's a public forum and I will keep it for myself.

[24andrand]

Same here! I have a 2021 MacBook Pro with 55GB of memory. I downloaded Adobe Acrobat a couple of months ago and didn't have this issue until today, where I'd get the same message as you when I open like 4 pdfs on acrobat to read. I updated my OS to the most recent, hoping that was the issue, but it did absolutely nothing. With only 3 chrome tabs open and a 4 pdfs open on adobe to read only, I was getting the same message within 15 minutes. I checked my storage and adobe was increasing its RAM usage to a ridiculous amount. 

I'm grateful I found your post because honestly, I was so worried that my mac had someone gotten malware. Now, I'm pretty sure the malware is just adobe acrobat. I don't have a subscription with them and I don't think I'll be using adobe acrobat if I can help it.

[chikega]

Same thing just occurred with my brand new MBP 2024 M4 64GB ... Adobe Acrobat essentially went beyond 256GB of usage for one PDF file open, froze up my system and caused it to reset. So much for safe memory practices in C++ Adobe - RAII, safe pointers, and the lot. 😕