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Photoshop Actions Disappeared? How to Recover Lost Actions and Fix Reset Errors

Forum|Forum|4 months ago
March 5, 2026
3 replies
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This has happened before - I open Photoshop and I get the error message that PS couldn’t load the actions and then they are now gone. Please tell me there is a way of recovering these. I generally back them up every month or so, but I had just created a couple of new actions last week and I haven’t backed those up.

(I am so sick and tired of this program glitching and either dumping the actions or dumping my keyboard shortcuts that I have set. I have saved my custom workspace before and EVEN THAT is getting dumped at random, for no reason.)

photoshop issue

Correct answer bree.iroyal

I finally recovered almost all of my actions.

I searched my entire drive for Actions Palette.psp (I used Everything by VoidTools).
Don't search for just one Actions Palette.psp. Search your entire computer.

I found multiple copies:

Photoshop 2024 → 35 KB
Photoshop 2025 → 801 KB
Photoshop 2026 → 34 KB

The large 2025 file contained almost my full Actions library.

I closed Photoshop, backed up the current 2026 Actions Palette.psp, copied the 2025 Actions Palette.psp into the Photoshop 2026 Settings folder, and launched Photoshop again.

All my old action sets immediately came back.

Before trying this, always back up your current Actions Palette.psp.

This saved me from recreating months of work.

bree.iroyalCorrect answer

Participant

I finally recovered almost all of my actions.

I searched my entire drive for Actions Palette.psp (I used Everything by VoidTools).
Don't search for just one Actions Palette.psp. Search your entire computer.

I found multiple copies:

Photoshop 2024 → 35 KB
Photoshop 2025 → 801 KB
Photoshop 2026 → 34 KB

The large 2025 file contained almost my full Actions library.

I closed Photoshop, backed up the current 2026 Actions Palette.psp, copied the 2025 Actions Palette.psp into the Photoshop 2026 Settings folder, and launched Photoshop again.

All my old action sets immediately came back.

Before trying this, always back up your current Actions Palette.psp.

This saved me from recreating months of work.

Stephen Marsh

Community Expert

That’s great news!

The .psp file should be considered temporary and may be subject to corruption or loss, which is why making an explicit save to .atn file for each individual action set is strongly advised.

There is a script in xtools (ActionsPaletteToFiles.jsx) to automatically export out each action set in the actions palette as individual .atn files.

Stephen Marsh

Community Expert

More info here:

https://prepression.blogspot.com/2017/01/photoshop-custom-action-file-backup.html

D Fosse

Community Expert

Exactly how are they gone? Do you get an error message, or are they simply not there?

The latter would be expected if there was a major version update in between, in which case there is an entirely new Settings folder in your user account. That’s why you save actions out to .atn so they can be reloaded. Until that’s done, they only exist as temporary items in your general preferences.

Anything else points to either a permissions issue in the user account, or, perhaps more likely, corrupt preferences.

Preferences are vulnerable to corruption because they are rewritten on every application exit. An irregular shutdown can corrupt that rewrite. Preferences contain a lot more than your own user settings, it’s the entire application configuration including hidden and system-dependent parameters. Corrupt preferences usually look like application bugs and are often mistaken for that.

R

Reality ReimaginedAuthor

Known Participant

Thank you for the reply - upon loading Photoshop I simply get an error message that says essentially that it couldn’t load the actions. This has happened before. I generally backup the actions, but apparently forgot to when I made two new actions last week. That’s why I’m asking, because I’m not sure I can completely remember what I did.

I was assuming the answer was no.

The workspace/keyboard shortcut customization happens once almost every month. I was advised (after bringing this up) to create a custom workspace that had the shortcuts and then if they disappear, to reload that workspace. When I go to reload that workspace, it’s reset to a default workspace.

The only thing that seems to stop this on a consistent basis is a fresh wipe of all Adobe products and then a reinstall. Which is what I’m about to do since the actions are already lost.

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