For content creators, having the Adobe suite on Mac is essential. Adobe forced previous versions to buy, but we can continue using it for free with Adobe 2025 and macOS 13 or later. In this update, Lucid Gen will guide you through installing Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Lightroom, Premiere, Audition, Animate, After Effects, Media Encoder, and many other Adobe applications.
Download the complete Adobe suite for Mac
Here’s what you need to know to install Adobe for Mac. Note that macOS versions lower than 13 won’t work with this tutorial.
| macOS | 13 (Ventura) and up |
| Adobe Version | 2025 |
| Chip | Intel and ARM |
| SIP and Gatekeeper | Force shutdown |
Download CleanMyMac, and AdobeCreativeCloudCleanerTool first. These are the tools you need to install Adobe for Mac for free.
- AdobeCreativeCloudCleanerTool: Helps you safely uninstall old Adobe applications on Mac.
- CleanMyMac: Helps you clean up any leftovers after uninstalling old Adobe on Mac.
The list of installation files that Lucid Gen shared includes the following Adobe applications for Mac:
- Adobe Acrobat
- Adobe After Effects
- Adobe Animate (coming soon)
- Adobe Audition
- Adobe Bridge
- Adobe Character Animator (coming soon)
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe InCopy
- Adobe InDesign
- Adobe Lightroom
- Adobe Media Encoder
- Adobe Photoshop
- Adobe Premiere
Prepare before installing Adobe
Please note that this part is essential; it determines whether you will install Adobe for MacBook smoothly. So you need to follow it completely. This tutorial is done on macOS Sequoia (15.2) and is 100% successful.
Turn off Gatekeeper
Not only Adobe but to install any application outside the App Store without paying, you must disable Gatekeeper. If you cannot disable Gatekeeper on macOS Sequoia, the installation process will require more steps; I will guide you thoroughly.
Clean up anything related to old Adobe
If you have installed any Adobe applications on your Mac before, then to install Adobe applications for Mac, you need to remove and clean up everything related to the old Adobe.
Step 1: Open AdobeCreativeCloudCleanerTool and click on the Clean All button. This is a safe way to uninstall all Adobe applications completely. However, you must manually restore the hosts file on Mac because the Fix Host File feature does not work well.
Step 2: Remove any remaining Adobe sync applications using CleanMyMac. Go to Uninstaller and search for Adobe to remove all remaining applications.
Step 3: Delete empty folders related to old Adobe. Although you have used the two tools above, you must manually delete anything associated with Adobe in the folders below if you find it.
- /Applications
- /Applications/Utilities
- /Documents
Step 4: Restart your computer.
If you complete all the above preparation steps, Lucid Gen believes that 90% of you will successfully install the entire Adobe suite for Mac. Now, we must go through the installation steps for each Adobe application.
Get Adobe for Mac for free
Step 1: Install Adobe Creative Cloud on Mac. In version 2024, we cannot install Creative Cloud but must use AntiCC. But in version 2025, we will use Creative Cloud.
Step 2: Grant permission to open the Adobe Creative Cloud installation file. If you have successfully disabled Gatekeeper with macOS lower than Sequoia, it will not be as complicated as this.
- Click Done with a warning; do not Move to Trash.
- Open Settings > Privacy & Security > Security. Click the Open Anyway button.
- Click Open Anyway on the new warning.
- Enter the password to unlock the device and OK.
Step 3: Install Adobe Creative Cloud as usual. Click the Continue button, and enter the password to unlock the device when prompted and OK. You need to install it; opening the application to log in is unnecessary.
During the installation process, select Keep to keep the installation files. We will delete them manually after everything is done.
Step 4: Open the installation file of an Adobe application. Right-click on the Install file and select Show Package Contents.
Browse through the Contents > MacOS folder and open the Install file to install.
Step 5: Grant permission to open the Adobe application installation file. The steps are similar to step 2.
Step 6: Click Continue to install Adobe on Mac; after installation is complete, click Close. If there is a warning, enter the password to unlock the computer and OK.
Once you’ve installed an Adobe app for Mac, you don’t need to open it yet.
Steps specific to Lightroom (click to view)
Lightroom requires opening and logging into any account.
Step 7: Open the Patch file. You may need to unzip the zip file on your Mac.
Open the Patch.pkg file
Steps specific to Acrobat (click to view)
Acrobat will have 2 Patch files:
- No Account Patch V1: No need to log in to an account; you can use it offline.
- With Account Patch V2: You must log in to an Adobe account but can use AI features.
Step 8: Grant permission to open the Patch file if you have problems disabling Gatekeeper.
Step 9: Proceed to patch Adobe. Check the name of the Adobe application you are installing. Select the Clean Hosts file if you have previously patched another Adobe application.
After patching, you can select Move to Trash and delete the remaining installation files on your device.
Once you have installed Adobe for Mac, you can delete all downloaded installation files and enjoy Adobe applications on your MacBook.
Go to the Welcome interface and start your design work.
Steps specific to Lightroom (click to view)
Lightroom may give an error warning after patching, but only for the first time must you click Reopen or reopen Lightroom.
Steps specific to Premiere (click to view)
Premiere won’t have a Welcome screen, but you can still use it by clicking File on the menu bar and opening your project.
How to handle errors during installation
Failed with error code 183.
Delete or rename the Photoshop folder in the Application, restart and reinstall.
Failed with error code 146.
- Vào /Applications/Utilities/Adobe Sync/.
- Rename the CoreSync folder to CoreSync_1.
- Restart your device and reinstall the app installer.
Failed with error code 107.
This error is due to Intel machine not being compatible with the installer, please comment to let me know.
We can’t verify your subscription status.
This error is due to you patching another Adobe application. Restore the host’s file and try to install it again. After successfully logging in to the Adobe applications, then patch each application.
Install files cannot be opened because they are from an unidentified developer.
Disabling Gatekeeper is one way to fix this error.
Alternatively, you can use Terminal with the following command xattr -cr (Don’t forget the space after -cr) Then, drag and drop the file into the Terminal window after the space and press Enter.
Photoshop shows a black window when saving the file.
Press Command Option Shift and start Photoshop, then select Yes.
Damaged and can’t be opened. You should move it to the Trash.
Disabling Gatekeeper is one way to fix this.
Alternatively, you can use Terminal with the command xattr -cr (Note: there must be a space after -cr). Then, drag and drop the file into the Terminal window right after the space, and press Enter.
Conclusion
Older versions of Adobe are no longer free, and the Adobe suite is no longer free on older macOS. So upgrading to macOS 13 (Ventura) or later is a must, and Lucid Gen would like to express our condolences to those who cannot upgrade to macOS. If you want to upgrade macOS, uninstall all Adobe first. Otherwise, you may encounter errors with Adobe applications that you cannot resolve.
After successfully installing the full MacBook Adobe suite and saving a lot of money, consider donating to Lucid Gen to develop and continue updating newer Adobe versions.
If you encounter any problems during the installation process, please read each step carefully in the article, and do not hesitate to leave a comment below the article. Please provide specific information, such as the name of the Adobe application, the chip, and the MacOS, so we can better support you. I wish you a successful installation!
Perfection. Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, and Lightroom work great so far.
If anyone else had a rough time with Lightroom, here’s a heads-up: I had to install it like five times on my M1 MacBook Pro because I also run Little Snitch. Figuring out when to allow connections for logging into the Adobe account was tricky. If I logged in and didn’t block the right connections between the login and whatever the app does to phone home, I’d end up with a bricked install that expects to go online every time I launch it. Total pain but doable.
Wow, thank you for your feedback!
Hi! I have been trying since several days but I am not able to download Adobe After Effects & Premiere Pro from the given links in my M2 MAX, macOS Sonoma 14.6. I was able to download all the other software without any problems. Thanks a lot to you! But I hope if you could please look into the matter & help me out! Once again, thank you so much!
I think these files are heavy and you faced some problem with internet or device storage.
I’m afraid that Photoshop tells me that I can choose between starting a free trial or quit. In other words, it’s just like a normal downloaded program. Can I do anything about this?
Hello, If you follow my steps (include patching step), It should be fine.
Hi, it’s me again. I started working in Photoshop and opened Camera RAW. After closing it, the top menu (where File, Edit, View, History, etc. are) became of bad quality and unresponsive. I’ve never encountered this issue before. I’m not sure what to do about it. I’ve already tried resetting Photoshop settings, disabling the use of the graphics processor, and even reinstalling Photoshop, but the problem keeps happening every time. Maybe you know something about this? I really need help. I couldn’t find any solutions online.
I have MacBook Pro 2,3 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9,
MacOS Sequoia 15.4
Hi, I’ve successfully installed Photoshop, and everything seems to be working fine. However, when I was installing the patch, there was a note mentioning that I could later install the account patch to enable features like neural filters. I would appreciate it if you could let me know where I can download the account patch. Thank you!
Currently, we can not use AI features, because they are online credit features.
I can’t get macOS 13 on my computer. Do you have instructions to get Adobe CS for Mac versions before 12?
Give it a try. Maybe It works with 12.
Hey!
Every time I try to open the disk image it says the disk is not readable by this computer. I have an Intel Mac , OS 14.6.1
Sorry, I have no idea. What the application did you download?
It helped me to delete and download it again
I’ve tried with both Lightroom and Photoshop.
Oh, hi! I’ve run into another issue with new Illustrator. I followed all the instructions exactly.
When I click on the application to open it, this window appears:
“You can’t open the application “Adobe Illustrator 2025” because this application is not supported on this Mac.”
I have MacBook Pro 2,3 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9,
MacOS Sequoia 15.4
Hello, what is the version had you downloaded?
2025 v29.3
If your Mac is Intel, try Intel version, I added to download table.
Great! Thank you so much❤️
Hi! Thank you so much for all the hard work you’ve done!
I’m having this issue with Adobe After Effects and Adobe Media Encoder:
When I launch the application, the loading process stops at this window. I click OK, but it keeps popping up again and again.
Error Loading Sapphire Bundle
Can’t find Sapphire bundle in /
Applications/GenArtsSapphireAE/config/sapphire-ae64.bundle: file does not exist.
Please reinstall Sapphire Plug-ins to fix this.
What would be the best way to fix this?
Hello, I don’t have experience to solve this error. But I found a solution on Adobe community, please try it.
hey bro… a big Kudos
for your priceless support… am very much happy, without your guidance I can’t be achieved what was done on my mac mini m4 with all Adobe, but am facing password issue for lr alone. I will be greatful if you can guide me for this small issue…
Thanks in advance…
What is the step you “facing password issue”?