P: The state of folders in Presets panels is not remembered between session

I think it's no doubt been requested over the years, but a new request certainly wouldn't hurt and may garner enough votes for it.

Saving your presets to disk isn't automatic, correct. Just to the temporary Settings folder. I don't know if people want it to be automatic as plenty of people (particularly designers) may create presets for a project, perhaps by modifying their standard presets, but when that project is done, they don't want them all cluttering their hard drive. I'm just guessing that might have been the original reason for this behavior, particularly when hard drive space was rare and expensive.

I, otoh, would be fine with it being automatic, since I have to manually clean out my Library Presets folder anyway, and when I'm creating several patterns, brushes, or styles in a session, having  to constantly save to disk while I'm working (to avoid the crash that never happens unless you have something you haven't saved), is more of a PITA than clearing out from time to time.

I know we've also asked for a more automatic backup for our Library folders. Briefly we had Cloud Sync and they made a promise to bring something like that back (but didn't say when). Just a script from Adobe that we run to gather our important settings and presets together so we can manually back up to an independent location on our computer would also be helpful.

Some solution or combination of solutions should make this  easier. I think they've been depending upon us to learn the hard way.  '-}

Just to clarify, when I create and save a new style on the "Styles" palette, it does not create a new physical ".asl" file in /Applications/Adobe Photoshop 2020/Presets/Styles/, correct?

It sounds like you are saying that the new style is only saved in the "Styles.psp" file in ~/Library/Preferences/Adobe Photoshop 2020 Settings/. So, if that file gets zapped or replaced by an update, then all of my custom styles are gone.

It seems to me that if imported styles can be saved as .asl files in /Applications/Adobe Photoshop 2020/Presets/Styles, then our custom styles should be able to be saved there as well, so that they are not lost with an update.

I am wondering if I should make this a feature request, if it hasn't been suggested already.

I am really sorry to hear that. A lot of people think that if their custom styles are there tomorrow, they'll be there permanently. It's something I could wish Adobe had a better fix for—such as when you see New Style (or whatever), the dialog also has a Save To Disk or something that would perhaps come first and catch the user's eye—at least make them think about doing that.

I also try to save at least one version back (currently all that Adobe technically allows), just in case something isn't working in the current version. It's always bothered me that Adobe's Creative Cloud hasn't made that option VERY visible to users. Both keeping our preferences and keeping older versions should be up front and center, instead of requiring the user to just know about it all.

> even though I placed it in my current Photoshop installation in the same place on my internal hard drive, it made no difference. "My Styles" is still not showing. So, I am assuming that the update today just zapped them out of existence. 😞

I would have expected them to have updated the Settings file when they updated the software from 2019 to 2020, and with an update where they didn't ask if you wanted to keep your Preferences, they'd be kept automatically, but as everything keeps changing, I haven't run into this lately to know. And of course, you'd have to know you did want to keep your Preferences. That wouldn't help if you didn't know why you'd want to keep them.

I guess reconstructing your styles as you need them will be a good learning experience??? (sigh) Now that you've been burned, like most of us, you won't forget to save your presets to disk. Just a crash in the same session could have cost you what you'd just created—just ask me about it.  '-}

Cristen, I was not aware that I had to manually save them to my hard drive. At any rate, there is NO "My Styles" tab in Photoshop now. There is only a "Styles" tab which shows all of the default styles, plus my imported styles.

I did find a "Styles.psp" file on my backup external hard drive in ~/Library/Preferences/Adobe Photoshop 2020 Settings/Styles.psp. While it is dated from ten days ago, even though I placed it in my current Photoshop installation in the same place on my internal hard drive, it made no difference. "My Styles" is still not showing. So, I am assuming that the update today just zapped them out of existence. 😞

Did you never save them to the hard drive as their own set(s)? They're normally stored temporarily in preferences, so if that gets zapped, so do your presets. They should be in My Styles if Preferences weren't zapped.

If you kept an older version of your software, you might be able to recover them from that version's Preferences> Settings folder. I have a Styles.psp file in my 2019 Settings folder. I haven't tried to see what it would do if I copied it into my 2020 Settings folder, but if you've got something like that, it could be worth a try.

OUCH! I just opened Photoshop 21.0.2 for the first time after an update earlier today. I used the command-click option as you suggested, Jeffrey -- which worked fine -- and the first thing I noticed is that all of my custom styles have apparently been zapped out of existence. All of the imported styles I downloaded from the web some time ago are still there, but none of the ones that I actually made in Photoshop are there. 😞

I would think a Solo mode in the flyout/ c-s menu for panels, something like LR has, could work for everyone. Enable Solo mode and it closes whenever you open a new folder. That helps those of us who hate scrolling.  Don't enable Solo mode and it leaves everything the way you left it, so if a folder you're working with is opened, it stays open until you decide you want to close it.

Thank's, on macOS is Command + click on a folder.

Thanks Jeffrey. I hope a more permanent solution is forthcoming.