Acrobat Reader on Mobile iOS — Downloaded PDFs are not automatically saving as local files

Report · Jun 15, 2024

I've been downloading some PDFs from sites like Drivethrurpg and opening them in Adobe Acrobat, and I've been noticing that some of these PDFs automatically become "local Acrobat files" in the app (which is what I want right now) while others do not and instead remain "Recent Files" (which is what I don't want right now).

I am able to save a copy of these recent files as local Acrobat files, but doing this for each one is quickly becoming tedious.

My questions are these:

1. Why are some of my downloaded PDFs automatically becoming local files, while others are not?

2. How can I make it so that every file I open in Acrobat will save as a local Acrobat file? / Is there a faster way to turn these recent files into local Acrobat files?

Any help is appreciated!

Report · Jun 18, 2024

Hi @skinnydeceiver,

Hope you are doing well. Thanks for writing in!

By design, iOS does not automatically download PDF files to your device. The files are launched on iOS's native PDF viewer, from where you should be opening them in Acrobat.

If you see the download pop-up before opening the file in Acrobat, it means that the files are stored in the local storage of your device.

If you directly open a file from a website and then move to Acrobat and make any annotations, comment or highlights to the file, then Acrobat saves a local copy of the file, else not.

I would suggest double-checking if the file is saved to your files by clicking the share-> save to files, before launching the file in Acrobat to prevent this.

Hope this helps.

-Souvik