Published Oct 10, 2023, 9:00 AM EDT
Christian joined MakeUseOf in 2021 as an Apple specialist and technical writer focused on helping people solve technical issues and achieve more with their technology. His works were published by reputable publications like iDownloadBlog, HowToGeek, Tom's Guide, 9to5Mac, 9to5Google, and others.
One of the original tech bloggers with 20+ years of journalism experience, Christian studied Information Science specializing in Expert Systems and Management Information Systems back in the 1990s.
During his graduation year, Chris contributed to a weekly enterprise-focused magazine and started a faculty e-zine distributed on floppy disks. The pet project sparked a lifelong love for writing so strongly that he dropped out and took a leap of faith in journalism.
Over the years, Christian worked his way to becoming Editor-in-Chief of a gaming magazine, and started three IT periodicals covering Windows PCs, consoles and consumer tech. After a decade in print journalism, he founded and ran a marketing/PR agency specializing in digital marketing and interactive entertainment for five years.
Core Sync is a syncing component of the Adobe Creative Cloud (CC) suite. Plagued with high CPU usage, Core Sync slows your Mac, but that's not the worst part about it—the app tends to stick around after uninstalling Adobe, throwing file access prompts every now and then.
Authorizing access won't jeopardize your privacy, though the annoying message has intimidated some people. Removing Core Sync with the standard uninstallation method has proved very difficult. Fortunately, you can manually kill its processes and stop them from reloading in the future. We've got the instructions, so let's get to work, shall we?
What Is Core Sync on Your Mac?
Adobe Content Synchronizer, or Core Sync, is automatically installed as part of the Adobe suite. Adobe's Creative Cloud installer adds Core Sync to your login items to ensure it automatically launches when you start your Mac or log out and back in. It also installs a macOS extension for synchronization status of Adobe cloud files in the Finder interface.
Lastly, Core Sync creates background processes that sync your files, Adobe fonts, CC libraries, and other documents. These things also eat up CPU time and hog the RAM, causing your MacBook to overheat and reduce its battery lifespan.
Uninstalling Core Sync with Adobe's Creative Cloud Cleaner tool doesn't work reliably. But if you'd like to give it a try, follow the download link in Adobe's support document.
How to Disable Core Sync in Adobe CC for Mac
If the Creative Cloud suite is installed on your Mac, you can pause background sync, remove Core Sync from macOS Login Items, and turn off the Finder extension with just a few clicks. Doing so will temporarily disable Core Sync, and you can re-enable it by reverting the changes you make below.
To pause syncing, launch Creative Cloud, click your profile icon in the top-right corner, and choose Preferences. Click Syncing in the sidebar and then Pause Syncing on the right.
A pause symbol across the Creative Cloud icon in the macOS menu bar indicates that syncing is currently paused.
To stop Creative Cloud from automatically launching at startup and initiating syncing, select General in the sidebar, scroll down, and toggle off Launch Creative Cloud at login and Sync Creative Cloud files in the background after quitting. Then, click Done.
To prevent the syncing component from running, go to System Settings > General and click Login Items. Then, toggle off Adobe Creative Cloud under Allow in the Background.
As the last step, we'll turn off Adobe's extension that integrates Core Sync with Finder. Go to System Settings > Privacy & Security, choose Extensions below Others at the bottom, click Added extensions, untick Finder extensions below Core Sync, and hit Done.
Now, you can restart your Mac and see if Core Sync is disabled.
How to Remove Core Sync From Your Mac After Uninstalling Adobe CC
You may be wondering what to do in case Core Sync sticks around after uninstalling CC. You can trash all Adobe-related property list (.plist) files that serve as hooks for the launchd process in macOS that runs hidden LaunchDaemons and LaunchAgents in the background.
First, launch Finder and click Go > Go to Folder from the menu bar. Then, head to the following three directories, select all .plist files with the prefix "com.adobe" in each directory, Control-click the selection, and choose Move to Trash
- /Library/LaunchDaemons/
- /Library/LaunchAgents/
- ~/Library/LaunchAgents/
Restart your Mac for the changes to take effect.
Free Your Mac From Adobe's Core Sync
Core Sync is notorious for high CPU usage, causing your Mac to slow to a crawl and overheat. So, if macOS keeps throwing permission dialogs for Core Sync to access files on your Mac even after uninstalling Adobe, our instructions should help you resolve that.
Adobe Creative Cloud isn't the only misbehaving software suite that wouldn't uninstall entirely. Other prominent developers like Microsoft install background processes that are difficult to remove, but Adobe is perhaps the most extreme example of such a user-hostile practice.