u/Adventurous-Hog

If you've set your Creative Cloud install location to an external drive but apps keep installing to /Applications anyway — or your apps show as "not installed" even though they're sitting right there on your external — this fix is for you.

The Root Cause

CC stores your install location preference in a file named after your account ID. But the ID in that filename doesn't always match the ID CC actually uses when performing installs. When they don't match, CC can't find the location override and falls back to /Applications.

Step 1 — Find your prefs file ID

In Terminal, run:

bash

ls ~/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/OOBE/ | grep accc.apps

You'll see something like:

com.adobe.accc.apps.B1DF1E73677EA3990A495FDB.prefs

That string between apps. and .prefs is your prefs ID. Copy it.

Step 2 — Find your install identity ID

Run:

bash

ls ~/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/OOBE/com.adobe.accc.apps/products/

You'll see one or two folders like:

591C2B224CC5FEE40A746C14@AdobeID
B1E01E73677EA3990A495FDB@0d945c8261a5b4a4495fd0.e

The u/AdobeID one is your personal Adobe account. The other long one is your work/enterprise account. Copy the one that matches your account — the full string including everything after the @.

Step 3 — Compare them

If your prefs ID from Step 1 doesn't exactly match the folder name from Step 2, that's your problem. In our case:

• Prefs file: B1DF1E73677EA3990A495FDB
• Products folder: B1E01E73677EA3990A495FDB@0d945c8261a5b4a4495fd0.e

Different. CC is writing the install location to the wrong identity.

Step 4 — Copy the prefs file to the correct identity

Run this, replacing the IDs with your own from Steps 1 and 2:

bash

cp ~/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/OOBE/com.adobe.accc.apps.PREFS_ID.prefs \
   ~/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/OOBE/"com.adobe.accc.apps.PRODUCTS_ID.prefs"

In our case that was:

bash

cp ~/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/OOBE/com.adobe.accc.apps.B1DF1E73677EA3990A495FDB.prefs \
   ~/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/OOBE/"com.adobe.accc.apps.B1E01E73677EA3990A495FDB@0d945c8261a5b4a4495fd0.e.prefs"

Step 5 — Restart CC Desktop

Fully quit CC Desktop — right-click the menubar icon and choose Quit, don't just close the window. Then reopen it and verify your install location is still set correctly under Preferences → Apps.

Step 6 — For stubborn apps (especially InDesign)

Some apps, InDesign in particular, have cached install path state that survives the prefs fix. If an app still installs to the wrong location:

1. Let it install to /Applications
2. Uninstall it from CC Desktop
3. Reinstall — it should now land on your external drive

Bonus tip

Make sure your external drive is mounted before opening CC Desktop, otherwise it'll fall back to /Applications every time regardless of this fix.