Long-term changes in dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations in streams are widely documented, and increasing DOC (“browning”) is often attributed to watershed recovery from acid deposition. Recovery from acid rain is expected to reduce sulfate deposition, raise pH, and weaken metal complexation in soils and streams, increasing DOC solubility and mobility. It remains unclear whether DOC responses to acidification recovery are consistent across systems, or whether rising pH reliably predicts increasing DOC export at continental scales, given heterogeneity in buffering capacity, soil chemistry, and hydrologic setting. MacroSheds, a continental-scale dataset of long-term watershed observations, encompasses sites with varying degrees of historical acid deposition and buffering capacity under contemporary climate change, enabling the separation of chemical recovery signals from climate-driven variability. We analyzed multi-decadal records of DOC, pH, ionic strength, atmospheric sulfate deposition, and selected climate variables across minimally disturbed watersheds in the MacroSheds database. Among sites with sufficient data for long-term trend analyses, atmospheric sulfate deposition declined at all sites (n=166), indicating a consistent, continental-scale recovery forcing. Stream pH increased significantly at 48% of qualifying sites, demonstrating widespread chemical recovery. DOC responses were heterogeneous: ~6% of qualifying sites exhibited significant DOC increases and ~15% exhibited significant DOC decreases, indicating that significant DOC trends are confined to a subset of chemically responsive systems. Sites with significant DOC trends include cases of both increasing and decreasing DOC despite rising pH, suggesting that chemical recovery alone does not guarantee browning. Together, these results show that the potential for acidification recovery is widespread, yet DOC responses can decouple from recovery trajectories. This decoupling indicates that recovery forcing alone cannot predict browning and that watershed biogeochemical and hydrologic context likely mediates whether recovery translates into long-term changes in DOC export. As a result, projections of terrestrial-to-aquatic carbon export under continued recovery and ongoing climate change are likely to require watershed-specific controls rather than relying on pH or deposition trends alone.