How to change the Adobe preferences folder location?

[audio90-g5kAg7]

Hi, I appears that the Adobe software saves its preferences in my 'This PC > Documents > Adobe' folder. I'd like to change this to another folder on my root drive for all the software (Windows 10).

How would I do that? I looked at the Adobe CC App Manager but it doesn't appear to be there.

Any help is appreciated.

[kglad · Accepted solution]

you can't change the preference file locations:

acrobat:  https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1595848?start=0&tstart=0

adobe media encoder: https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1713540 and https://helpx.adobe.com/media-encoder/using/preferences.html

after effects:  http://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/preferences.html

animate: Re-create preferences

audition: https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1079494

bridge:  https://helpx.adobe.com/bridge/kb/troubleshoot-errors-freezes-bridge-windows.html

captivate: https://forums.adobe.com/thread/975032

dreamweaver:  https://helpx.adobe.com/dreamweaver/kb/restore-preferences-dreamweaver-cs6-cc.html: 

fireworks:  https://helpx.adobe.com/fireworks/kb/restore-preferences-fireworks-cs5.html

illustrator:  http://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/setting-preferences.html

incopy:  https://forums.adobe.com/thread/526990

indesign:  https://forums.adobe.com/thread/526990

lightroom: https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/help/setting-preferences-lightroom.html

muse: https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1127564 (message 7)

photoshop:  https://forums.adobe.com/thread/375776

photoshop elements:  https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop-elements/kb/preference-file-locations-photoshop-elements.html,  http://www.photokaboom.com/photography/learn/Photoshop_Elements/troubleshooting/1_delete_preferences...

prelude: https://helpx.adobe.com/prelude/using/prelude-set-preferences.html

premiere elements:  https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop-elements/kb/preference-file-locations-photoshop-elements.html

premiere pro: http://www.mediacollege.com/adobe/premiere/pro/troubleshooter/trash-preferences.html

[pittpt]

I mean change location like move from documents folder to be stored in somewhere else. Forexample, applications or a folder inside documents. Everytime I move it, it just keeps recreating new foler called "Adobe" in the document.

[danielbmusic]

I would love an answer to this, too!  I'd like to move my Adobe folder out of iCloud so it won't start synching every time I work in an Adobe app and create work files.

Any ideas on this, anyone?

[eatteo]

I am in the same exact boat. This is very frusturating beacuse it takes up all my icloud space. Big fault for Premiere on the mac.

[martir68364484]

YES IT IS LITERALLY DRIVING ME CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  WHY IS THIS NOT A THING?????????? 

It is a catastrophe because if forces my to store ALL of my photos on my PC.  I free up space like every day only to have these EFFING photo folders reappear.  WHAT IS THE POINT OF CLOUD STORAGE IF I CANNOT USE IT.  I ONLY STORE THE PHOTOS I AM WORKING ON LOCALLY.

OH MY GOD IT IS ANNOYING AND I HAVE BEEN LITERALLY BASHING MY BRAINS AGAINST A ROCK FOR MONTHS OVER THIS.

[martir68364484]

And I should add that all of this ONCE AGAIN is the result of the massive update.  Please stop this crap for now.

[martir68364484]

Any idea when someone will at least acknowledge why we are unable to change the location of this preferences folder??  It's the one constant that is unleaashing this train wreck.  Amd we don't pay for ICloud and OneDrive so that we have to keep it off all the time.  This is a MAJOR PROBLEM.

JUST LET US CHANGE THE LOCATION OF THE STUPID FOLDER.  NORMAL ONEDRIVE OPERATIONS ALLOW YOU TO CLICK ON A SINGLE ITEM IN A FOLDER AND HAVE THAT -- AND ONLY THAT -- BE STORED LOCALLY ON YOUR PC.

However, this one document forces me to keep everything on my cloud storage locally.  I don't have the space for it.  I will run out because I have a terabite of cloud space and only 107 GB of storage locally.  THIS HAS GOT TO BE FIXED.  IT HAS GOT TO BE YOUR NUMERO UNO PRIORITY.  PEOPLE HAVE BEEN COMPLAINING FOR YEARS!!!!!!!!!!!  WHY CAN'T WE CHANGE THE LOCATION OF THIS FOLDER???????????????

[martir68364484]

[martir68364484]

[Rawi]

I have EXACTLY the same issue with OneDrive. The Adobe folder is breaking OneDrive sync. I looked everywhere on how to move the Adobe folder out somewhere but there is no way to do that. I tried to do it from OneDrive to exclude the Adobe folder but it leads to conflict. Probably Microsoft will be faster to fix this than Adobe.

I really need OneDrive for work. Adobe engineers please look into a way to allow us to put the folder out of Documents.

[MartinHickford]

For the people specifically having an issue with the Adobe folder in 'Documents' causing issues with OneDrive where your 'Documents' folder is synced as part of a OneDrive Backup, I found a *sort of* work around for this. 

I'd moved my 'Documents' Library to be inside OneDrive E:/OneDrive/Documents and everytime I'd use Premiere, I'd get issues with OneDrive syncing duplicates of preferences etc, and that in turn causing lag in Premiere. 

To get around this, I went to OneDrive settings, then to 'Back Up' then hit 'Stop backup' on Documents. The official windows 'Library' version of the Documents folder then reverted back to its old, now blank, location C:Users/Me/Documents but all my actual Document files stayed within the E:OneDrive/Documents folder. 

From there, when I loaded Premiere, it created a new Preferences folder inside C:Users/Me/Documents, which was no longer being managed by OneDrive, meanwhile, my folder E/OneDrive/Documents still contains the rest of my documents files, and is still being synced with OneDrive. The final step was to swap out the official windows library 'Documents' folder with the one that I actually use under QuickAccess in the navigation pane.

From what I can tell you're not losing anything by having, using and syncing a seperate documents folder from the official windows library folder, other than when Applications use the Documents folder to save preferences. But I could be wrong.

[martir68364484]

This might be an interesting solutin but I am not sure I completely understand. My workaround was to move photos I am working on to a local folder that does not get backed up to the cloud. This is working okay (because when I am done working on the photos I move them off the hard drive. I mean, I am not happy with it, because I have to then delete it from light room (after I have exported copies with the metadata embedded).

I try to keep all my photos in the cloud (unsynced locally. This is accomplished by selecting "Free Up Space).  Ordinarily, [and by that I mean outside of adobe bridge, lightroom or photoshop] I oculd have a sub-folder with 100 photos in it, click on one photo, and ONLY that one will be made available locally (as is indicated by a green check mark in onedrive).

It works perfectly well  until, the software insists on depositing that aforementioned folder into onedrive (always after their upgrades). Then, it downloads everything in in the My Photos file onto my pc. You can never just work with one photo, or folder of photos. It's all or nothing have to be stored on the pc at all times. For now I have kind of given up and accepted it because I don't want to wear out my hard drive freeing up space, only to have it reappear 10 times a day.

So anyway, my question is: if I stop the backup, I am not really sure what that will do. Since it seems to backup from local files to the cloud? Iwant to keep everything in the cloud and off my pac except what I am working on, but photoshop will not allow me to do that.

[martir68364484]

Okay. After the last major upgrade (which I hate by the way), I turned off onedrive. After all that effort, I noticed that when I turned onedrive back on, it did install the offending folder in My DSocumets, but it did not seem to trigger the usual avalanche.

However, the update seems to have really effed things up in terms of "moving the furniture around on me": jist when I was finally satarting to get it.

[Ralph5E87]

I just can't believe that some profile (anything at all really) is dumped in my - very organized - documents folder!! I just installed Premiere Pro after subscribing to an expensive license and the first thing I notice is that it writes the word 'Adobe' in my synced folders. This just isn't anywhere near acceptable.

[MartinHickford]

100% Agreed. It's meant that the default Documents folder on my system is entirely unusable for its intended purpose. I've had to create an entirely new Documents folder to use for... you know... DOCUMENTS while the default one is just packed full of Adobe, Red Giant and Izotope junk. The frustrating thing is that there's no way to remove this junked up Documents trashcan from the navigation panel in Explorer, so it's almost guaranteed that every time I try to quickly access my actual documents, I'll first accidentally click on the Adobe spew-bucket folder instead. 

HOW IS IT SO HARD, IT'S 2021!?!

[kglad]

i'm not sure what you are seeing.  my default documents folder has nothing in it from adobe (or anyone else).  just the folders created when my os was installed

and my user documents folder is well-organized:

with an organized adobe folder:

[Ralph5E87]

Hi kglad,

With 'default' documents folder I mean the C:\Users\Keith\Documents folder, the default location for a user to store his documents. A decade ago, this looked almost inevitably like the one you posted, but nowadays all the junk folders have been moved elsewhere. My own documents folder doesn't contain anything (anymore) that I don't also want to sync to the cloud. I don't see My music, My videos, My pictures, Downloads and for that matter anything in the Adobe folder, as 'Documents'.

My documents folder is not something I will post here, because it contains subfolders for every project or topic I am currently working with or on, or items that have a personal value. I keep it up to date by moving stuff to archive whenever it isn't current anymore. Compare it to how you would use a document drawer in real life, I can't imagine you would consider writing your Premiere Pro \profile folder on a piece of paper to put it in a drawer like that. Why would the dynamiclinkmediaserver folder have to be in there, for example? Or the SimController.log?

In the past, software developers used the Documents folder as indicated by the system as the place to dump all configuration stuff. So I get that it is a legacy thing. But really, as the author above said, it's 2021 now. At least make it configurable, or choose an appropriate place. I just don't want the word Adobe at the top of my carefully selected project names, simple as that. The fact that I'm forced to have that stupid folder in my list, and have to sync it to my cloud service, is ridiculous at best. I mean, I already set the hidden attribute on the folder of the system where I use Premiere Pro, but the crap syncs across all my devices, and since I use the online view a lot I'm always confronted with this unprofessional addition to my list in my browser window..

This must be extremely annoying to so many users who simply put up with it because 'Premiere Pro' is the best... Unbelievable. And it is so easily fixed by just making this profile path configurable. It is just really irritating to people who embrace the modern work flows. Well, my two cents anyway.

I had some hope though.. someone pointed out that you could copy the settings to the cloud, so I secretly had hoped that I could then remove the annoying folder. Unfortunately, it just got recreated.

Hopefully someone will fix this at some point, because I would love to use Premiere Pro. But I will actually be looking into other (less qualified) video editors instead just for this issue alone, 'cause I'm sure that there is another qualified video editor on the market for the amount of money I (almost) spent on Premiere Pro. [I'm still in free trial]

[gasbi7]

This is also a problem on Mac, because it gets saved in the Documents folder that is being synced on iCloud. Has anyone found a solution?

In my case, three folders get created always in Documents/Adobe: PremierePro, Adobe Media Encoder, and Lumetri.