# Develop Presets have disappeared



## bsmuseby (May 19, 2020)

Earlier this month, I moved my LR from an iMac to a new Mac Book Pro 16". Everything went well until a couple of days ago, when the following occurred:

Unable to open LR. - beach balling.  I deleted the current catalog and opened the catalog from the previous day.
Next, unable to close lightroom, and the computer cooling fan  ran continuously. Force quitting stopped this issue.
I deleted LR and reinstalled it (all the time  doing hard shutdowns).
I was unable to open LR until I had gone back to a catalog saved 10 days previously. I redid the 10 days' work that was last, and closed Lightroom
Today, Lightroom ran normally until I discovered that all but four of my develop presets are missing. (these were very old, and hadn't been used for years).
I'm a bit of a backup fanatic, and have searched for the folder 'develop presets' with Time Machine. I can find multiple copies of it in Time Machine, but in all of the found instances, only the 4 of my  old custom presets are found. The ones I found had file names preceded by 2 tildes (~~), and file extensions 'lrtemplate'. Tonight, I created a new preset; I used the application 'Find Any File' to search for it, which it found. This file name has no tildes, and the extension is XMP. It is stored in a different folder, but here again, all but the four older ones are missing. The two paths are:

with tildes
... lightroom settings > Develop Presets > User Presets > ~~name.lrtemplate

xmp version (created today)
... lightroom settings > Settings > User Presets > name.xmp

Does any of this make any sense? Any hope of finding my old presets?
Going forward, while I carefully backup my catalog everytime I close Lightroom, I have been relying on Time Machine to look after my presets. Perhaps I should also be backing up the settings folder? Anyone do this? 
It doesn't make sense that I can't find my presets from Time Machine  versions predating my loss of the presets. I have been searching for the presets by name: perhaps they are embedded in a file?


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## johnrellis (May 19, 2020)

On Mac, since LR 7.2 develop presets are stored in:

/Users/_user_/Library/Application Support/Adobe/CameraRaw/Settings

In its wisdom, Finder hides that folder from you by default. But the easiest way to get to it in Finder is via LR -- do Preferences > Presets > Show Lightroom Develop Presets.

Note that if you've enabled the option Preferences > Presets > Store Presets With This Catalog, then presets are stored in the Lightroom Settings subfolder of your catalog folder (except for presets you've imported using LR's Import Develop Profiles And Presets, which remain stored under ~/Library).

Since LR 7.2, presets have the extension .xmp.  Prior to that, presets had the extension .lrtemplate.   The .lrtemplate presets were stored in:

/Users/_user_/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom/Develop Presets

When you first upgraded from an older version, LR converted the .lrtemplate presets from the old location to .xmp presets in the new location. It renamed the old presets to ~~name.lrtemplate, so that it wouldn't try to convert them a second time.


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## bsmuseby (May 19, 2020)

That was really excellent and helpful information. Thank you!
Siince you're doing so well, any thoughts as to why I could use Lightroom for several days with no issue,  and then be confronted with the 'corrupt file, no repair possible' error, and have to go back about 10 days to find a lrcat backup that wasn't corrupt? After years of no problem, it feels like LR is in fact fragile - it is making me very nervous.
Thanks again for the presets advice.
Bob


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## bsmuseby (May 20, 2020)

johnrellis said:


> In its wisdom, Finder hides that folder from you by default.


In my experience, not just Finder, but Lightroom also hid these presets from Lightroom - doesn't that actually suggest that there is something wrong with my installation?


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## bsmuseby (May 20, 2020)

johnrellis said:


> Note that if you've enabled the option Preferences > Presets > Store Presets With This Catalog, then presets are stored in the Lightroom Settings subfolder of your catalog folder (except for presets you've imported using LR's Import Develop Profiles And Presets, which remain stored under ~/Library).


 
I do have the preference checked as suggested. But since the presets aren't there, it isn't working.
I have moved the develop presets from the Library, and they are now at:

/Users/mbp2004/Pictures/lrBackroom/Lightroom Settings/Settings/User Presets

In LR, when I click on "Show All Other Lightroom presets", my develop ones are the only ones available.

I'm assuming there are other presets that I need to copy to this location, and need to do it in a way that LR accepts.
Question:
1) to the filepath above, what folder do I add for the develop presets?
2) what other presets are there that I could store here that would be backed up? Exploring in the Library, I find things such as Filename Templates, Keyword Sets, Print templates. Is this location (Library...) active? or as with the Camera Raw develop settings, is it superseded somewhere, but my installation failed to move them?

Sorry to pelt you with so many questions, but I would like to make my LR conform to what LR expects, and be able to back all this stuff up either with the catalog, or by creating an independent routine to back them up.


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## johnrellis (May 20, 2020)

To test my understanding, you have enabled the option Preferences > Presets > Store Presets With This Catalog, and you've restarted LR after checking that option.  Your catalog is located at:

/Users/mbp2004/Pictures/lrBackroom

1. At this point, when you click Preferences > Presets > Show Lightroom Develop Presets, does it take you to this subfolder?

/Users/mbp2004/Pictures/lrBackroom/Lightroom Settings/Settings

2. When you click Show All Other Lightroom Presets, does it take you to this subfolder?

/Users/mbp2004/Pictures/lrBackroom/Lightroom Settings

3. That latter folder should contain these subfolders -- does it?


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## bsmuseby (May 20, 2020)

johnrellis said:


> 1. At this point, when you click Preferences > Presets > Show Lightroom Develop Presets, does it take you to this subfolder?
> 
> /Users/mbp2004/Pictures/lrBackroom/Lightroom Settings/Settings
> 
> ...



The subfolder I get with 'show all other lightroom presets is the screen shot taken at 20.06.06

The folder that that LR is now using for develop presets is:
/Users/mbp2004/Pictures/lrBackroom/Lightroom Settings/Settings/User Presets

I seems to me we're getting close. The issue that worries me (in addition to a flawed LR installation and corrupt data) is that the develop presets that LR is finding are in the folder 'User Presets' . If I were to move Export Presets to this folder, wouldn't LR fail to distinguish between the Develop and Export presets, not to mention Keywords, Keyword Groups, etc.?  
By the way, LR has my keywords and keyword groups. That's all working, but I'm guessing these items are not included in the catalog backups.
Once again, thank you for your help with this very confusing set of circumstances. Not clear why I'm so fortunate to have your assistance.
Bob


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