Books app automatically redownloads PDFs after I manually remove them

I have several PDFs uploaded to my iCloud library in the Books app. Most of them stay in the cloud, not downloaded to my devices. However, the few that I have downloaded and imported to the Adobe Acrobat app (to upload to the Adobe cloud and access on my Windows laptop) will automatically download themselves to both my iPhone and my iPad, despite the fact that I have pressed “Remove Download” on them several times on both devices. The downloads will be removed for a few minutes, but then they will redownload themselves again. The files have all been deleted from my Adobe cloud without issue, and as far as I know all “automatic download” settings are turned off for my Books app. How are they able to keep forcing downloads? I don’t want to choose “Delete Everywhere” because I need to keep the files in my cloud.

iPhone 16 Pro Max, iOS 18

Posted on Aug 16, 2025 7:24 AM

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4 replies

Aug 29, 2025 11:18 AM in response to picas

Okay this is my issue too. Until recently there wasn’t a problem. I have all the same PDFs stored in folders on my iPhone.I have never had the majority of them downloaded. I also have some in Files/Files Manager. But I haven’t had this happen ever. I have removed them multiple times and it is never permanent. I have a 50gb cloud and only around 13 used and that’s counting everything. If iCloud isn’t meant for storage what should I use?

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Books app automatically redownloads PDFs after I manually remove them

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