How to Fix Adobe Photoshop Keeps Crashing on Windows

Can’t figure out why Adobe Photoshop keeps crashing on your Windows PC?

Whether you’re doing creative or professional work, Adobe Photoshop is the best tool to tweak photos and create graphic designs. It simply offers the best tools for manipulating images and features layers. 

Although Adobe Photoshop has been around for decades, it’s not close to perfect, just like any app or program. 

If you’re a regular user, you probably know that Adobe Photoshop has its own share of issues. 

One of the most common problems with Photoshop is that it keeps crashing unexpectedly on Windows. This can be very annoying, especially if you’re making a lot of progress with your project and haven’t saved it. 

Usually, corrupted system or application files are the culprit for random crashes in Adobe Photoshop. However, it can also be due to outdated software and third-party apps. 

Today, we’ll show you what to do if Adobe Photoshop keeps crashing on Windows. 

Let’s get right into it!

1. Restart Your Computer. 

If an application keeps crashing on your computer, the first thing you can do is restart your system. This should ensure that Photoshop’s resources are correctly loaded, and there are no temporary errors on your system. 

Check out the steps below to restart your PC:

1. On your computer, click on the Windows icon in the Taskbar to open the Start Menu. 
2. After that, go to the Power Options tab. 
3. Finally, click on Restart to reboot your system. 

After restarting your computer, relaunch Adobe Photoshop and observe if it will still crash. 

2. Update Your Graphics Drivers. 

Corrupted or broken display drivers are one of the most common reasons why Adobe Photoshop keeps crashing on Windows. When you perform heavy workloads on Photoshop, it uses your graphics card to optimize its performance. 

If your graphics drivers are outdated or corrupted, it can cause issues with Photoshop. 

Follow the guide below to update your display drivers: 

1. On your keyboard, press the Windows + X keys to open the Quick Menu. 
2. Next, click on Device Manager. 
3. Expand the Display Adapters tab and right-click on your video card. 
4. Finally, choose Update Driver and follow the prompts. 

Restart your computer after updating your drivers. Go back to Adobe Photoshop and check if the problem is solved. 

3. Close Unnecessary Programs. 

Adobe Photoshop can take up a lot of resources once you start adding layers to your project. If your system runs out of memory, Photoshop might crash. 

To avoid this, we suggest closing unnecessary programs on your computer. 

1. On your keyboard, press CTRL + SHIFT + ESC to open the Task Manager. 
2. Now, go to the Processes tab and click on Memory. This should sort your programs based on your RAM usage. 
3. Finally, identify the apps you’re not using and close them. 

Once done, go back to your project and check if Adobe Photoshop still crashes. 

4. Reset Your Photoshop Preferences. 

You might have played around with your Photoshop preferences and made some changes that caused it to crash. Now, if you’re going to find the problematic configuration, it will take you agest it figure it out. 

To speed things up, we suggest resetting your preferences to roll back the changes. 

Here’s what you need to do: 

1. On your computer, launch Adobe Photoshop and press the CTRL + K keys to open Preferences. 
2. Now, go to the General tab and click on Reset Preferences on Quit. 
3. Finally, restart Adobe Photoshop to apply the changes. 

Restart Photoshop afterward and observe if it will still crash. 

5. Update Windows. 

If you’re using a new version of Adobe Photoshop, it’s possible that your operating system is not compatible with it. To rule this out, update your OS to the latest version possible. This should also patch bugs and glitches on your computer. 

Check out the guide below to update Windows: 

1. First, press the Windows + I keys on your keyboard to open Windows Settings. 
2. After that, click on Windows Update on the side menu. 
3. Lastly, choose Download & Install if there’s a new version available. 

Go back to Photoshop after the update to check if the problem is solved. 

6. Update Adobe Photoshop. 

The version of Adobe Photoshop you’re using might have an issue that causes it to crash when you access a feature or perform an action. To rule this out, check if there are available updates for Adobe Photoshop. 

See the guide below to update Photoshop: 

1. On your computer, launch Adobe Photoshop. 
2. Next, click on Help. 
3. Finally, choose the Updates tab and follow the prompts. 

After updating the app, restart your computer to apply the changes. Use Adobe Photoshop as you would and observe if it will crash. 

7. Scan for Corrupted System Files. 

You can use Windows’ built-in tool to scan your drive for broken and missing system files. Some of your system’s resources may have gotten corrupted, which causes issues with Adobe Photoshop. 

Follow the steps below to run an SFC scan: 

1. On your keyboard, press the Windows + X keys to open the Quick Menu. 
2. Next, click on Command Prompt (Admin). 
3. Finally, type ‘sfc /scannow’ and hit Enter. 

Wait for the scan to finish and restart your system. 

8. Reinstall Adobe Photoshop. 

If none of the solutions worked, we suggest reinstalling Adobe Photoshop on your computer. This should ensure that you have the latest version of the software and there are no corrupted installation files on your system. 

Here’s how you can uninstall Adobe Photoshop: 

1. First, open the Control Panel and click on Uninstall a Program. 
2. Now, locate Adobe Photoshop from the list. 
3. Lastly, right-click on the app and choose Uninstall. 

Go to Adobe’s website afterward to download the latest installer. 

That ends our guide for fixing Adobe Photoshop if it keeps crashing on Windows. If you have questions, drop a comment below, and we’ll do our best to answer them. 

If this guide helped you, please share it. 🙂