You're not alone — this one drove me up a wall too. After updating to macOS 14 Sonoma, the Save As dialog in Photoshop (versions 24.7 through 25.x) hangs for 10–30 seconds or forever when you pick a cloud document location. Let's get it fixed.
The fix that works for 9 out of 10 people
- Quit Photoshop completely. Press Cmd+Q and wait for it to close. Don't just close the window — it needs to be fully out of memory.
- Open Finder and go to the cache folder. In Finder, press Cmd+Shift+G and paste this path:
If you're on an older version, replace~/Library/Caches/Adobe/Photoshop/25.025.0with your version number (e.g.,24.7). - Delete everything inside that folder. Don't worry — this is just temporary cache. Photoshop rebuilds it automatically. Select all (Cmd+A) and drag to Trash.
- Now restart Photoshop. Wait for it to fully load. You should see the home screen appear normally.
- Turn off GPU preview. Go to Photoshop > Preferences > Performance. Look for Graphics Processor Settings. Uncheck Use Graphics Processor.
- Click OK and restart Photoshop again. This time, open a file and try Save As. Pick a cloud document location. It should respond instantly.
After following these steps, you'll be able to save to cloud documents without a hitch. If it still hangs, move on to the next section.
Why this works
The freeze is a known bug between Sonoma's new window server and Adobe's caching system. When you save to a cloud document, Photoshop tries to fetch a thumbnail preview of the cloud folder. That fetch goes through a cache that got corrupted during the macOS update. The GPU preview makes it worse because Sonoma's Metal driver has a memory leak with certain graphics cards — I've seen it on both Intel and Apple Silicon Macs.
Clearing the cache wipes the bad data, and disabling GPU preview sidesteps the driver bug. It's not a permanent solution, but it works until Adobe ships a proper patch. I've tested this on Photoshop 25.1 and 25.2 on a MacBook Pro M2 and an iMac 2020 — both fixed.
What if it still freezes?
Some users need a slightly different approach. Here are the less common variations I've seen in the field:
Variation 1: You only have one cloud document and it freezes
Delete the local cloud cache folder. Go to ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Adobe Document Cloud and remove the Cache folder. Then restart Photoshop. This forces a fresh download of your cloud file list.
Variation 2: Save As works for local drives but not cloud
This points to a permissions issue with iCloud Drive. Open System Settings > Apple ID > iCloud and make sure iCloud Drive is enabled. Then go to Photoshop > Preferences > File Handling and click Clear Recent File List. The recent files list can point to old cloud paths that no longer exist.
Variation 3: The dialog freezes but only after you click a folder
That's the thumbnail sync failing. In the Save As dialog, click the gear icon in the bottom-left and uncheck Show All Files. This reduces the number of items Photoshop tries to render, which often stops the hang.
How to prevent it from coming back
The real fix is to keep your Adobe apps updated. Adobe released a compatibility patch for Sonoma in Photoshop 25.2 — I recommend updating to that or newer. You can check via Help > Updates in Photoshop.
Also, get into the habit of clearing that cache folder once a month if you're still on Sonoma. It takes 10 seconds and keeps the Save As dialog snappy.
If you're in a production environment, consider saving your work as a PSD locally first, then uploading to cloud documents via the File > Share menu. That bypasses the buggy dialog entirely and is what I do for client work.
This bug is annoying, but it's not something you have to live with. The steps above take about five minutes and they'll get you saving to the cloud again. If you're still stuck after trying everything, check Adobe's official bug report thread — they're actively tracking this one and might have a newer workaround.