Adobe Background Processes

[David__B]

Processes Consolidation & Improvements

Based on user feedback and our developers' efforts, we've significantly reduced the number of Adobe background processes. Some processes would continue to operate in the background & others are now optimized to run on demand, leading to improved performance. We are continuing to work on further reducing the number of processes in the future. The number of processes listed in the linked help article has been greatly reduced from the original count.

Overview

Adobe background processes run behind the scenes and perform several important tasks that make your Adobe apps run seamlessly. You may not always notice them, but these critical background processes work even when not using any of your Adobe apps. Some of them are meant to sync your fonts or libraries to the cloud, while some install automatic updates for your apps.

Similarly, your Creative Cloud desktop app interacts with other background processes on your device. These services (such as Creative Cloud Core Service, Adobe Content Synchronizer, and Creative Cloud Libraries Synchronizer) perform tasks like app installations and updates and asset syncing.

• There will be fewer entries in the Task Manager on Windows due to modifications we made to the Crash Reporter processes. Click on the button below for more information.

Learn more

Useful Links

• Close conflicting processes or applications
• Common questions | Creative Cloud

[kglad]

thank you!  that was unexpected (by me) and hopefully very helpful for users having problems (also, not me).

[Emily287210047g5v]

I want them all gone. If I'm not using adobe, I want nothing running. It should and can be a simple switch. I don't want fonts etc to sync, it can do that when I start the application and I will accept the slower start up. I don't use any Adobe cloud storage, nor ever want to, so this also should not be running, even if I were to, if I don't have the application open why sync at all??? I'm switching to Affinity, started learning the program two days ago because of this issue.

[kglad]

post this in cc desktop ideas (aka suggestions)

[gardengnome999]

+1 

im also looking into lightroom alternatives because of this. the background processes sound shady to say the least, i cannot understand why they need to be running at all times, and most of all i cannot understand why we don't have a say in what runs in our computers. At least have it be optional for people that prefer the fonts to sync up offline, vs people that dont!

[kglad]

posting here doesn't make adobe aware 

[Emily287210047g5v]

Posting anywhere doesn't make them respond. There are several reports in their reporting system about this, they have not responded to the community at all in years... people keep marking the posts as answered because of some work around that worked for one or two people.

Type in "running in background" in the community and you'll see this is purposely being ignored.

[kglad]

you have some influence in the desktop ideas forum.

[Emily287210047g5v]

Thank you for letting me know. Since it has been ignored for so long, I'm just going to move on from Adobe. There are some things I cannot accept of a third party software company, running on my computer without my explicit permission to, is one of them.

[kglad]

understood.

[Kalvyn Rasquinha]

Hi @Emily287210047g5v and @gardengnome999. I head up product for the Creative Cloud desktop app. We are aware of the complaints around processes running in the background and have been working on reducing this as can be evidenced by the original post here. There are preferences in the Creative Cloud app that you can use to disable syncing when the app is not running.

The Creative Cloud app provides capabilities for all 20+ desktop apps Adobe has and unfortunately none of the changes we make are trivial since we need to coordinate with many other product teams to ensure we don't disrupt existing workflows for our members. We're continuing to work on reducing our resource footprint on machines as part of the product roadmap.

[Emily287210047g5v]

Hi Kalvyn,

I work in software development and understand the difficulty in reversing very poor development/product decisions. It is frustrating to think a company thought this was a good idea in the first place.

No worries for me anymore, I have switch over to Affinity for all but gradient work. If I need to work in gradients I have a separate laptop I can install it on.

[MrGoHunter]

If you still have this problem, please see my solution here Solved: How can I disable background processes and service... - Adobe Product Community - 11249554

[TwistedRealm]

Adobe like to hide their respawning and start-up bloatware:
I've provided a guide to the methods they use and how to disable/delete these parts, in the thread below.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/creative-cloud-services-discussions/how-can-i-disable-background-proc...

The OFFICIAL "Answered" tick is nonsense - it doesn't answer the OP's question it answeres an in-line sidequest..... SO IGNORE THAT TICK and scroll down to my answer

Synopsys from my post:

I have had good success keeping them repressed in the past, but now you need to remove thier settings from "Four" locations:

Start-Up items: In task Manager (or via MsConfig for old versions of windows like xp/7 etc.)

Registry start-up keys: in three different nodes.

Task Scheduler: to disable automatic respawning

Services: to disable Acrobat and Adobe updaters. (WindowsKey+R and type: services.msc)

But - keep in mind that after updates Adobe will most likely reinstall and reset some of these, such as the Task Scheduler - so you may have re-do this occasionally.

[same_8266]

You are free to dislike how Adobe designs its software, but what you are describing is normal and expected behavior for Adobe products, not something hidden or malicious.

Adobe background processes are not “important” in the sense that they exist to benefit you directly at all times. They are important to how Adobe’s ecosystem functions, including licensing state management, component communication, plugin handling, font syncing, update awareness, crash reporting, and internal service coordination. Whether or not you personally value those features does not change how the software is designed to operate.

Yes, your system is capable of launching Adobe applications cold, and nobody disputes that. However, Adobe applications are not designed to operate as fully isolated executables. They rely on shared background components, and those components are intentionally respawned when required. This is why killing services, disabling startup items, deleting registry keys, or removing scheduled tasks never results in a permanent change.

The scheduled tasks you listed are not “hiding in plain sight.” They are standard Windows scheduled tasks used by many vendors, including Microsoft, GPU drivers, and other professional software suites. Disabling or deleting them may appear to work temporarily, but they will be recreated during updates, repairs, sign-ins, or whenever a dependent component is launched. That behavior is by design.

Claiming these tasks and registry entries can be “safely deleted” is misleading. While doing so may not immediately crash your system, it can lead to broken updates, missing services, plugin failures, sign-in problems, and unpredictable application behavior. Adobe does not support systems modified in this way.

The reason these background processes keep coming back is not because Adobe is secretly undoing your actions, but because the software is built to ensure required services are available when needed. If they are missing, they are restored automatically. This is no different from how Windows services, graphics drivers, or antivirus software behave.

If you choose to script service killers, registry wipes, or task removals, that is entirely your decision. However, doing so provides no real benefit on a system that meets the recommended requirements, and it often introduces instability and additional problems.

In short, there is nothing to “fix” here. The behavior you are seeing is intentional, well-documented, and expected. The fact that these processes respawn on reboot or application launch should make it clear that attempting to permanently remove them is both unnecessary and ineffective.