•Adsorption desalination cooling system is proposed.•A mathematical model of the system has been conducted.•Optimization of the system is investigated using Modern Optimization.•Optimum conditions were detected.•70% increase in system performance using proposed strategy. The target of this study is to maximize the performance of solar-driven adsorption desalination cooling (SADC) system by defining the optimal operating conditions using a modern optimization algorithm. A mathematical model for the SADC system employing silica gel has been proposed. Then, a robust, simple, and quick optimization algorithm named radial movement optimizer is applied for determining the best operating parameters of the SADC system. The SADC’s decision variables used in the optimization process are cycle time, hot water inlet temperature, cooling water inlet temperature, and flow rate. The performance of the SADC system is evaluated concerning the specific daily water production (SDWP), the coefficient of performance (COP) and specific cooling power (SCP). The optimization process results are compared with their corresponding experimental results. Several sets of the parameters’ constraints that represent different conditions are considered during the optimization process. A 70% increase in SDWP and SCP is achieved by using the optimal operating conditions with no change in the system design or the used materials. An amount of 6.9 m3/day/ton desalinated water, 191 W/kg cooling capacity and 0.961 COP are demonstrated as the possible outputs of the proposed SADC system. This research shows the validity of this optimization technique in exploring all possibilities and showing the best-operating conditions of the SADC system.