How to Delete Illustrator Prefs on a Mac

Corrupted Illustrator preferences can cause big headaches.

Corrupted preference files cause Adobe Illustrator misbehavior ranging from minor hiccups in the application interface all the way up to major crashes and freezes. When Illustrator changes from the best-behaved application on your system to a crash-happy troublemaker, analyzing its symptoms in search of a cause can waste time without solving your problem. If you're running the latest Illustrator update on a Mac with an up-to-date operating system, toss the program's prefs and you may solve your problems without having to look further for their cause.

Instructions

1. Shut down Adobe Illustrator before you delete its prefs files to avoid causing even more problems. Press "Command" + "Q" or open the Illustrator menu and choose "Quit Illustrator."

2. Navigate to your startup drive's "Users" folder; then locate the folder with your user name. Inside this folder, open the "Library" folder and locate the "Preferences" folder inside it. Within that "Preferences" folder, find the "Adobe Illustrator CS5 Settings" folder. It contains a folder named with the abbreviation for your language version and country localization. For example, if you use the US English version of Adobe products, the folder name is "en_US." Within that folder, you'll find the "Adobe Illustrator Prefs" file. Delete this file by pressing "Command" + "delete" on your keyboard or dragging it to the Trash.

3. Locate your user "Library" folder using different methods if you're using Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, in which the operating system hides these files. Access the Finder's Go menu and choose "Go to Folder." When the Go to Finder dialog box comes up on your screen, type a tilde, a forward slash, and then the word Library: ~/Library. Click on the "Go" button to reveal your "Library" folder and locate the "Preferences" folder that contains your Illustrator settings folder. You also can press and hold the "Option" key while you access the Go menu, then choose "Library." Once you reach your prefs file, delete it.

4. Use Illustrator's built-in reset procedure to delete your Adobe Illustrator prefs file and immediately replace it with a fresh set of default preferences. Hold down the "Option," "Command" and "Shift" keys while you launch the program by double-clicking on its icon in the Finder. Continue holding down the three keys while Illustrator starts up. Once it finishes launching, go to the Illustrator menu, choose the "Preferences" submenu and select its "General" option to bring up the Preferences dialog box, so you can recustomize the settings.

Tips & Warnings

• Back up your Adobe Illustrator prefs once you reset and recustomize them after deleting them. Use the backup to replace your prefs the next time the application misbehaves.

• Delete the entire "Adobe Illustrator CS5 Settings" folder to remove all the program's preferences, not just the main application prefs file. These ancillary prefs store settings for color management and presets for printing, tracing and transparency flattening.

• If you rename the prefs file instead of deleting it, Adobe Illustrator will ignore the renamed file and create a new default prefs file the next time you launch the program.

• Don't delete files whose purpose you're not sure you understand. You may damage the functionality of your software or the Mac OS.

References

• Adobe Systems: Using Adobe Illustrator CS5
• Adobe Systems: Troubleshoot System Errors and Freezes | Adobe Software on Mac OS 10.x
• Adobe Systems: Access Hidden User Library Files | Mac OS 10.7 Lion

Resources

• The Adobe Illustrator CS5 Wow! Book: Sharon Steuer
• Real World Adobe Illustrator CS5: Mordy Golding
• Adobe Illustrator CS5 Bible: Ted Alspach
• Illustrator CS5 for Windows and Macintosh Visual QuickStart Guide: Elaine Weinmann and Peter Lourekas
• Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Premium All-in-One for Dummies: Jennifer Smith, et al.