Quickly locate your Adobe product serial number so you can reinstall or update your product, upgrade from Adobe Creative Suite to an Adobe Creative Cloud membership, and more. Also learn how to fix invalid or revoked serial numbers. ConvertFrom-Enc ryptedAdobeKey Converts encrypted Adobe product keys found in the registry to keys used to install. Useful when refreshing a PC to find the key used to install the software on the old computer. How do I find the serial number of an installed, activated, running instance without third party tools, using only the computer it's running on? I don't see it in a Windows Registry entry like for the Acrobat key, but maybe I'm not not looking in the right place. Assume Win7 Pro OS.
Creative Cloud apps do not require serial numbers. If you are asked to enter a serial number when you start a Creative Cloud app, it is an error. For help resolving this issue, see Troubleshoot when Creative Cloud apps ask for serial number.
If you downloaded your product from Adobe.com or have registered it, finding your serial number is simple. Adobe keeps track of it for you.
To see a list of your registered products and their serial numbers, follow these steps:
Access your Adobe ID account, and sign in with your Adobe ID and password.
Your Adobe ID is the unique email address you first used when you started your membership, or purchased an Adobe app or service. If you used your social (Facebook or Google) account to create your Adobe ID account, your Adobe ID is the same as the email address associated with your social account. For more information, see Manage your Adobe ID account.
In the Order history screen, click the order number in the ORDER# column.
In the Order number screen, click Downloads and Serial Numbers.
If you have the product packaging or a redemption code from a reseller, check the following table to find your serial number.
How did you purchase your product? | Where’s your code or serial number? |
| Prepaid card, product box, or from reseller | See the section below: Prepaid card, product box, or from reseller. |
As a Student or Teacher Edition product | See Serial numbers, redemption codes, and product codes | Student & Teacher editions. |
As a volume license | You can find your serial number on the Adobe Licensing Website. |
If you purchased your product using a prepaid card, have a boxed product, or bought from a reseller, here's how to find your serial number.
| What do you have? | Where’s your code or serial number? |
| A prepaid card | Find your redemption code beneath the scratch-off foil on the back of the card. For detailed instructions, see Redemption code help. |
| A product box | Serial Number Find your serial number on the disc sleeve or on the product box. The serial number is a 24-digit numeric code. Note: For Elements products, the serial number is located on the Windows DVD sleeve. Redemption Code Find your redemption code on an insert card inside the box. The redemption code is a 22-digit alphanumeric code. For detailed instructions, see Redemption code help. |
| An email from a reseller | Find your redemption code or serial number in the email. If you receive a redemption code, see Redemption code help. |
If you receive a message when trying to install Adobe Creative Suite or Adobe Acrobat, stating that the serial number you are using has been revoked, or is invalid, it is because the serial number you are attempting to use has been blocked by Adobe. Adobe blocks serial numbers that are known to have not been issued by Adobe, or are known to have been used fraudulently by unauthorized sellers to produce counterfeit software. Unfortunately, you may only know the serial number has been blocked for this reason when re-activating or reinstalling Adobe software.
To learn more and to resolve this issue, visit this page.
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Like most programs you pay for, Adobe Acrobatrequires that you enter a unique serial number before using it. So, before you can install or reinstall Adobe Acrobat, you'll need to find the serial number that came with the program.
If you've lost your serial number, there's a very good chance you can retrieve it but only if Adobe Acrobat is still installed and the computer it's on is working.
You might be able to find your Adobe Acrobat serial number if you've uninstalled the program but only if the serial number information was left in the Windows Registry. We'll go over everything you need to know below.
The Adobe Acrobat serial number is actually more of a product key than a serial number but the terms are often used interchangeably.
How to Find Your Adobe Acrobat Serial Number
The easiest way to find your Adobe Acrobat DC or Acrobat X serial number is with a product key finder program.
Product key finder programs automatically search your computer for the product keys and serial numbers that your software programs store in the registry, Adobe Acrobat included.
See our Free Product Key Finders list for a number of programs that do just this. Not only that, they'll find your Acrobat serial for free. Most of the programs in that list are small and really easy to use.
The programs we've linked to will find the serial number for any recent edition of Acrobat, including Adobe Acrobat DC (Pro or Standard), Adobe Acrobat X, Adobe Acrobat 9, etc.
For example, Belarc Advisor, one of our favorite key finder tools (and the program shown in the example below), will properly locate the serial number for any version of Adobe Acrobat you have. If you find that another does for sure, let me know so I can keep this page updated.
The serial numbers in this picture have been greyed out but you'll see yours listed on the right side in plain text.
Most product key finder programs are designed to find serial numbers and product keys for operating systems, like Windows 10 or Windows 8, but some of them find serial numbers for several other programs as well — programs like Adobe Acrobat.
Other Ways to Find a Lost Adobe Acrobat Serial
While a keyfinder tool is certainly the easiest way to do this, no, it's not the only way.
If you're a little more technically inclined, there are a few additional ways to get your hands on a lost Acrobat serial number:
Ask Adobe for Your Acrobat Serial Number
It'd be unwise of me to skip the obvious — maybe Adobe can help! Depending on how, when, and from whom you purchased Adobe Acrobat, you may be able to contact Adobe and get your Acrobat serial number from them.
Visit Adobe's Find Your Serial Number page for more help.
Dig Up Your Acrobat Serial Number & Manually Decrypt It
Fortunately, the exact registry key that stores your Adobe Acrobat serial number is well known, as is a database file that stores it.
If you're comfortable in the Windows Registry, your Adobe Acrobat serial is located in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. Below is the exact location, depending on the version of the program and whether or not you're running a 64-bit or 32-bit version of Windows.
64-bit:
32-bit:
If you see multiple folders under Adobe Acrobat, replace 11.0 in the path above to whatever version of Acrobat you have.
Your other option is to grab the cache.db file from C:Program Files (x86)Common FilesAdobeAdobe PCDcache and open it with any free SQLite database viewing tool.
Adobe Serial Key Generator
Please know that this serial number is encrypted, meaning that what you find in the registry key or the database file is not the literal serial number you can enter to install Adobe Acrobat. You'll first have to decrypt the serial number.
The Adobe Acrobat serial number decryption process is fairly complex and has been well documented in this Super User thread, so we won't reinvent the wheel and post it here.
Acrobat Serial Number Generators & Cracks
Don't do that. There's no other way to put it.
While you may have come across Adobe Acrobat key generator programs or other kinds of Adobe Acrobat cracks, please know that these are not legal ways of obtaining a working serial number.
Serial Key Games
The only legal way of installing this program is by using a valid Adobe Acrobat serial number obtained through a legal purchase of the software.
If all else fails, you may be left with the final option of buying a new copy of the software. Amazon has great prices on most versions of Adobe Acrobat, plus options for previously used boxed copies as well.
Adobe Acrobat Dc Registry Key
Another option is to abandon Adobe Acrobat altogether and choose a free tool that does the same thing. Seriously. While not as robust, there are a number of other options out there.
Adobe Registry Key Location
Check out our list of the Best Free PDF Editors for some Acrobat alternatives that let you modify a PDF. Also see How to Print to PDF for multiple free ways to make a PDF file from any file or program.