Completely Remove Adobe from your Mac in 2 Steps
Do you not use Photoshop, Illustrator or Acrobat anymore but have current or previous installs? Dissatisfied with uninstallers, want to speed things up and reclaim disk space? Scroll down for 2 steps to remove all things Adobe (except Flash).
Enduring Adobe
My first Apple computer was a 2002 iMac G4 on nascent OS X Puma. My dad's coworker Sara was a Mac user too. Soon, Sara helped me install a pre-Creative Suite version of Photoshop.
Since then I've migrated through 5 Macs keeping Adobe software installed all along the way.
Lately, the 4 year old and last subscription-less CS6 hardly seems compatible on my 2015 MacBook running El Capitan. Been using Sketch to draw anyway, Preview for PDFs, and there are too many photo editing apps out now. Good run Adobe but it's time to go.
Removing Adobe in 2 Steps
Step 1: Try One Last Uninstaller
Download and run the Adobe Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool, their multi-app uninstaller and wipe assistant. Adobe does recommend running individual application uninstallers first, your call. Click the Clean All option.
This works ok. Files are deleted conservatively and the tool even sneaks some of its own into your system. My MacBook logged hundreds of deletions including launchds, which was nice. However, there were 13 errors and the process did not complete. Adobe folders and files remain.
Step 2: Type a One Line Command
The CC Cleaner Tool is a fair start but to see for yourself, open Terminal and use these commands. Adobe leftovers still living in your system!
$ find ~/ -iname "*adobe*"
$ find / -iname "*adobe*"
Summary of my results:
~/Library/Application Support/Adobe*
~/Library/Application Support/com.apple.sharedfilelist/com.apple.LSSharedFileList.ApplicationRecentDocuments/com.adobe*
~/Library/Application Support/CrashReporter/Adobe*
~/Library/Caches/Adobe
~/Library/Caches/com.Adobe.*
~/Library/Caches/com.adobe.*
~/Library/Cookies/com.adobe.*
~/Library/Logs/Adobe*
~/Library/PhotoshopCrashes
~/Library/Preferences/Adobe*
~/Library/Preferences/com.adobe.*
~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia*
~/Library/Saved Application State/com.adobe.*
/Applications/Adobe*
/Applications/Utilities/Adobe*
/Library/Application Support/Adobe
/Library/Preferences/com.adobe.*
/Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.adobe.*
/private/var/db/receipts/com.adobe.*
The One-Liner
After running the Adobe CC Cleaner Tool, open Terminal and copy paste the following command to remove all of the above listed files and folders. Administrator password and a restart are required:
sudo rm -rf /Applications/Adobe* /Applications/Utilities/Adobe* /Library/Application\ Support/Adobe /Library/Preferences/com.adobe.* /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.adobe.* /private/var/db/receipts/com.adobe.* ~/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe* ~/Library/Application\ Support/com.apple.sharedfilelist/com.apple.LSSharedFileList.ApplicationRecentDocuments/com.adobe* ~/Library/Application\ Support/CrashReporter/Adobe* ~/Library/Caches/Adobe ~/Library/Caches/com.Adobe.* ~/Library/Caches/com.adobe.* ~/Library/Cookies/com.adobe.* ~/Library/Logs/Adobe* ~/Library/PhotoshopCrashes ~/Library/Preferences/Adobe* ~/Library/Preferences/com.adobe.* ~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia* ~/Library/Saved\ Application\ State/com.adobe.*
I reclaimed over 9 GB after these 2 steps removing apps, files and processes. Not surprising though, Flash broke so you may want to download and reinstall that.
Splitting the above into 2, here is 1 line for User files only:
rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe* ~/Library/Application\ Support/com.apple.sharedfilelist/com.apple.LSSharedFileList.ApplicationRecentDocuments/com.adobe* ~/Library/Application\ Support/CrashReporter/Adobe* ~/Library/Caches/Adobe ~/Library/Caches/com.Adobe.* ~/Library/Caches/com.adobe.* ~/Library/Cookies/com.adobe.* ~/Library/Logs/Adobe* ~/Library/PhotoshopCrashes ~/Library/Preferences/Adobe* ~/Library/Preferences/com.adobe.* ~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia* ~/Library/Saved\ Application\ State/com.adobe.*
Another for Systems files only (admin password and restart required):
sudo rm -rf /Applications/Adobe* /Applications/Utilities/Adobe* /Library/Application\ Support/Adobe /Library/Preferences/com.adobe.* /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.adobe.* /private/var/db/receipts/com.adobe.*
Shout out Quora and StackExchange for assists with this.