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C
clutch-cargo
Inspiring
August 3, 2018
Answered

Custom Actions location?

  • August 3, 2018
  • 1 reply
  • 5880 views

Had my motherboard go on the fritz so a new complete install of Win 10 and Illustrator CS6 was in order.  Luckily I saved my entire C: drive so I have an exact copy of the old system and AI.  I also performed a backup of all my custom actions before the motherboard failure.

With that said,  I loaded up a few of the old custom actions but I am seeing a few errors running them now so I want to compare my saved actions against those I had in AI at the time of the crash.

Where are those custom actions stored?  What is the path? I am not talking about my "saved" actions but those I created and reappear each time I open AI.  They've got to be hidden somewhere?

      This topic has been closed for replies.
      Correct answer Kurt Gold

      Ok, did a search on Adobe Illustrator Prefs.... zero hits

      So as another test I loaded up a single Action (from one of my old saved actions), on the new install.  I then shut down AI and restarted to ensure it was still there and then performed a search of Adobe Illustrator Prefs on that.  Zero hits!?

      Tried also a search on any file *.* created or modified after 8/3/2018.  Nothing shows up as 8/4 (today)

      Perplexed as I justed added the action, I see it, but no file appears to change/update?


      On an English (US) Windows OS the file should be located here:

      <OSDisk>\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator <version number> Settings\en_US\x64\Adobe Illustrator Prefs

      Perhaps it is a hidden file, so you may have to enable the Show hidden files option in your Folder Options.

      1 reply

      Kurt Gold
      Community Expert
      Kurt GoldCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      August 3, 2018

      Are you talking about your custom actions which you didn't save as .aia files?

      They used to be stored inside the Illustrator Preferences file (AIPrefs).

      C
      clutch-cargoAuthor
      Inspiring
      August 4, 2018

      Yes, that is what I am talking about.  I searched all the *.aip in AI and nothing gives a clue as what might contain my custom actions.  Dates for all aip's are 2012.  My actions were created from 2016-2018.  None of my custom action names are listed. 

      Mmmmm... wondering if I could copy over all the old .aip's into the new AI install and maybe the custom actions would appear??

      Kurt Gold
      Community Expert
      Kurt GoldCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      August 4, 2018

      Searching for *.aip files won't help. Action files = *.aia

      But even searching for *.aia files will not help in this case since the unsaved action sets are not stored as *.aia files. They are somewhere inside the Illustrator Preferences file (plain text).

      You may try this:

      - Quit Illustrator

      - In your backup do a file system search for Adobe Illustrator Prefs

      - Copy that file and paste it into the same location in your new Windows installation (overwriting the original Illustrator Prefs file)

      - Restart Illustrator

      Normally, you should now see your custom unsaved actions in the Actions palette.

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