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Enterprise Admin Guide

Recover shared device licenses

Last updated on Aug 3, 2026

Learn how to recover Shared Device Licensing (SDL) licenses from retired or inaccessible machines.

Recover licenses from inoperable or retired machines by resetting licenses for a product profile or by deactivating licenses on individual machines using the Adobe Licensing Toolkit. Shared Device Licensing (SDL) packages consume licenses from your organization’s allocation when deployed. You can view the number of consumed licenses on the Products page of the Admin Console. Recovering unused licenses allows them to be reassigned to other machines.

Note

System administrator privileges are required to perform the given procedures.

Choose to reset or deactivate licenses

To recover a license from an inoperable machine, reset the licenses of all machines in that product profile.

To recover a license from a machine that you can still access, deactivate the license directly on that machine using the Shared Device Licensing toolkit.

Resetting licenses affects all machines mapped to the selected product profile. Adobe recommends saving any unsaved work and ensuring that any long-running processes are completed before performing a reset.

Deactivating licenses lets you recover licenses from accessible machines without affecting other devices. You can deactivate all licenses on a machine or deactivate only a specific license.

Reset licenses mapped to a product profile

Sign in to the Admin Console and select Products.

Select the product, then select the product profile containing the machines you want to recover.

Select Recover Licenses.

In the confirmation dialog, select Recover.

All machines in the product profile are reset immediately. Active machines are automatically relicensed when users sign in to Adobe applications, while unused machines remain unlicensed so the licenses can be reassigned.

For example, if a product profile is mapped to 10 machines and two of them are being retired, resetting the profile recovers licenses from all 10. The other eight machines are relicensed automatically the next time users sign in to Adobe apps, leaving two licenses available to assign to different machines.

Deactivate licenses using the Adobe Licensing Toolkit

Use the Adobe Licensing Toolkit to deactivate licenses on accessible machines without resetting the entire product profile.

A machine can contain one or multiple Shared Device Licensing packages. You can:

  • Deactivate all licenses on a machine, or
  • Deactivate a specific license associated with a package.

Follow these steps to deactivate licenses using the Adobe Licensing Toolkit on your operating system.

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Use the Shared Device Licensing toolkit

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