Create action to access Shadow/Highlight

Thanks to you all for your help.

Keyboard Shortcuts and Menus is shipped with F5 being Window>Brush Settings for Application Menus. Shift+F5 is the shortcut for Edit>Fill.

Maybe your new shortcut conflicts?

Just a wild thought.

I have managed to save the Action. I assigned it to an Fn key but it doesn’t seem to be connected. I tried a thumbnail, but don’t know where I’m supposed to find it, or how that’s supposed to function. 

​@DB157F 

I can’t reproduce this issue. Can you post screenshots and or step-by-step instructions?

With the new 2026 Actions panel interface, it may look/feel slightly different to the old/legacy "Classic Actions" interface - however it's pretty much the same, just different. :]

Classic Actions required a parent "Set" (folder icon). The parent Set could contain one or more child Actions within it. When you saved the parent Set, all contents (Actions) of the parent Set/folder were saved to the resulting .atn file.

A few versions back, Adobe allowed one to save an individual child Action from within the parent Set to a new independent .atn file (which was still a parent Set with a single child Action).

Now with the new "dual” actions 2026 interface, a new action can be created without first creating a parent Group (previously known as Set)… However, if you switch over to the legacy Classic Actions interface, then you will see these lose Actions inside of an "Ungrouped Actions" Group folder (Set), which is for legacy reasons as Actions still behave as they always did, the new user interface just makes the underlying architecture of a parent Group/Set folder less obvious.

If you decide to make the action again instead of getting it from your old Mac, it’s certainly still possible to make a Shadows/Highlights action in the current version of Photoshop.

1. Start from the Yours tab of the panel, click the + (Add) button to add a new action.
2. Fill in the Name and other options, then click Record or use the Insert commands. 

After you stop recording, your new action is in the Yours list…because, well, it’s yours.

Note that there more options now for actions you create, like you can assign a thumbnail icon.

If you created that action in a previous version, and if Photoshop was upgraded on the same computer, that old action should still be there but under the Yours tab.

But you say you have a new Mac, and in that case, any actions you created on the old Mac need to be brought over. Did you use Apple Migration Assistant to bring over what you had on the old Mac, or did you start over on the new Mac?

Either way, if you did not export your actions on the old Mac to an .atn (actions preset) file that you import into the new Mac, then custom actions should still be on the old Mac in the default location. That would be in:

/Users/[username]/Library/Preferences/Adobe Photoshop 2026 Settings/Actions Palette.psp

If you copy that file to the same folder in the new Mac, the actions you’re familiar with should show up in the Yours tab of the new Actions panel on your new Mac.

And if you are missing any other settings or presets you relied on in the old Mac, this Adobe help article tells you where all the settings are stored, so again, if you still have the old Mac or a backup of it, you can retrieve any settings you want from it:

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/preference-file-names-locations-photoshop.html

These are the actions I see when I click on Window>Actions.

Under Essentials, I have somewhere around 40 actions.
Under Yours, I have dozens of actions that I don’t recognize. A good chance that I’ve never created actions.

“When I try to record, it says there are no actions listed.” 
I don’t see any actions when I begin recording an action, so it’s confusing tht you expect to see existing actions.

Have you checked out Adobe’s Record an action webpage?