How to stop Adobe Acrobat from Automatically Opening Downloaded PDF Files?

[John37032664ppwp]

Hi Everyone,

I am currently Downloading PDF Files from my Gmail account to my Desktop.

Up until today, I was able to Download these files no problem.

Today however, everytime that a PDF Files completes downloading from Gmail to my Desktop, Adobe Acrobat Automatically Opens the file on my Computer.

This is Driving me MAD!

Is there any way to stop this from happening?

I've attached a file that I got from a Reddit post - where other people were having this issue.

It seems that in the past, that there was a check-box option in Acrobat Reader under Edit -> Preferences -> General  to turn off this annoying features. But this option is missing on my Acrobat Reader.

[Ravi Gour]

Hi All,

This issue has been fixed in our latest release "25.001.20531". You can disable the auto open from preferences now.

Regards

Ravi

 

[pawe?_4494]

from my end it looks like that despite I have this not marked adobe is opening from default all downloaded pdf's
I hate Adobe more and more after recent changes - it's so aggresive in system and I am not able to change updates settings like pop-ups, display theme always coming back to light every morning and what is the most annoying - reminder to set adobe default, preferences window is not fitting the screen and there is no option to resize.

- "restore last view" does not work

- "disable new acrobat" does not work as well

[vross2011]

I agree. The new Adobe is a dis-improvement. "Aggressive" is exactly the word.

[Dee_Jonker]

You need to go to your Adobe.Acrobat.com (online) account > hit you rprofile pic (top right) > select settings. 
The open to turn off this feature is at the bottom. 

[KG_OHD]

As of October 2025 --

Step 1: From the viewing window, select the three lines (kebab or hamburger ellipses) at the upper left corner. You can also use the CTRL+K button combination to open the preferences window as well.

Step 2: Select "Preferences.

Step 3: Select "General" in the "Categories" table on the left side.

Step 4: Unselect the "Always open PDFS saved from the web" box.

Step 5: Click "Okay" at the bottom of the window.

  

[nrpardee]

This is no longer the correct answer. Please see the one pointing to  edit preferences in Adobe reader

choose general

uncheck "Always open pdfs saved from the web"

[Steiner359]

So, the supposed "solution" (posted May 06, 2024) whereby you switch those Chrome settings back-n-forth did NOT work for me (and yes, I closed the browser and re-opened it before trying agian).

I did find a way, though (see the attached JPG image):  Go to Menu [top, left] > Preferences > General, and uncheck these 2 settings:

• Always open PDFs from printer.
  • *(This was the one that did it for me, since I was using "Print to PDF" at the time.)
• Always open PDFs saved from the web.