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PS v26.7 See the individual steps within an Action

Forum|Forum|17 days ago
May 5, 2026
13 replies
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I just updated PS, and now my Actions just seem to be a click and done, and I can’t open the Action to see the individual steps. I need to be able to do that since sometimes I like to start mid way or only do a portion of an Action… There has to be a setting to change, right??

Correct answer Conrad_C

I played with this a little more, and I now think the feature request is already taken care of in the current version, as shown in the demo below. What you see me do is:

Click the action’s gear icon to go into Edit Action mode.
Scroll down to the step in the list where you want to start playing the action, and click that step to select it; it will now be highlighted. I selected the “Transform current layer” step.
Click the Play button (the right-facing triangle) that you see at the top of the Steps list. The action starts playing from the step you selected, similarly to how it works in Classic mode.

This action has a Duplicate Current Layer step, so normally the Star 1 layer would have been duplicated. But that didn't happen here, there are still just two layers: Star 1 and Background. The Duplicate Current Layer step was skipped, as well as all action steps before that one, because I chose to start playing the action from the “Transform current layer” step in the middle of the action.

D Fosse

Community Expert

It's all there in the new interface. Click the gear icon to get to the individual steps where you can edit just like before.

This is all part of the new "modern user interface" that they're rolling out piece by piece now. Perhaps it's just as well to get used to it.

megand64229350Author

Participant

I had replied to Connor, but when I click on the Gear, and then the arrows to expand the Steps, nothing happens. I can’t see the steps unless I pull the Actions window from my window panel and make it free standing. Only then can I see the steps...

Ged_Traynor

Community Expert

@turner111 you can revert back to the classic actions panel

T

turner111

Inspiring

Thanks - not sure yet, it might be ok. Just funny how a lot of new features I might not use get a billboard when the app opens, but stuff that fundamentally changes the interface doesn’t ;)

T

turner111

Inspiring

I just updated PS & discovered that Action steps no longer have checkboxes right next to them (I liked those there)… but is there a way to edit a specific step within an action without executing the action?

thanks

Stephen Marsh

Community Expert

The reply from @Conrad_C in the other topic is here:

Jeff Arola

Community Expert

One thing that needs some attention in the “new” actions panel is editing an action that plays one or more other actions.

You can only see the actual action and not the other actions steps that it plays which makes a very difficult to diagnose which step in which action might be causing an issue.

Whereas in Classic Action mode you can see all the actions and when played in step by step mode see the complete process and that is not possible as far as i can tell in the “new” actions panel.

Conrad_C

Correct answer

Community Expert

I played with this a little more, and I now think the feature request is already taken care of in the current version, as shown in the demo below. What you see me do is:

Click the action’s gear icon to go into Edit Action mode.
Scroll down to the step in the list where you want to start playing the action, and click that step to select it; it will now be highlighted. I selected the “Transform current layer” step.
Click the Play button (the right-facing triangle) that you see at the top of the Steps list. The action starts playing from the step you selected, similarly to how it works in Classic mode.

This action has a Duplicate Current Layer step, so normally the Star 1 layer would have been duplicated. But that didn't happen here, there are still just two layers: Star 1 and Background. The Duplicate Current Layer step was skipped, as well as all action steps before that one, because I chose to start playing the action from the “Transform current layer” step in the middle of the action.

D Fosse

Community Expert

@Conrad_C

I’m not getting a “play”-button when I click the step in the action? How do you get that?

jane-e

Community Expert

@D Fosse

It might be the one to the right of “Steps”. Try that.

Jane

Conrad_C

Community Expert

The reason they changed it is that It’s better…it saves steps. When you want to run an action the old way, you either have to select the action and then click the Play button, or to run an action in one click you had to switch it into Button mode. Now, you only have to click the action (no need to double-click). Just one step.

But the important thing to understand is that nothing was lost. You don’t need to switch it to Classic mode. Playing back, editing an action and its steps, etc. are all possible from the default Actions panel view. It only takes one click to edit an action (hover over action, click the gear icon).

Or have you noticed that there’s something that works worse than before?

Stephen Marsh

Community Expert

@Conrad_C

In another topic, a different user wanted to start the expanded action from an arbitrary step in the action, not from the first step, so Legacy was required. This may have been due to the action having a “stop” step which required manual work, before the action was later resumed.

For most people, the single click rather than Ctrl/Cmd + double-click is indeed an improvement.

Conrad_C

Community Expert

Yes. I’m actually replying to that other thread now, because although I replied there, I realized what I posted didn’t answer the question. But my latest reply will show that I did find a way to play from any action step in the modernized Actions panel.

Conrad_C

Community Expert

It should all be there and discoverable, as you can see in the demo below. There should not be any need to go back to Classic mode. First, your actions are in the Yours section. If you already have the actions list set to Yours, then all you have to do is hover the pointer over the action and you will see a gear and an ellipsis (…) menu. This gives you not one, but two ways to switch into editing mode: Either click the gear icon to go directly into Edit Action mode, or choose Edit Action from the ellipsis menu; they do the same thing.

Again, as you see in the demo below, once you’re in editing mode, all of the options that were in previous versions of Photoshop, such as editing or inserting steps, should be available. The action steps are listed below the action options, so to see the steps on a smaller display you might have to scroll down the Actions panel. You can expand any step to see and edit the same step details you saw in earlier versions of Photoshop; again, the editing options for a step appear when you hover the pointer over that step. When you’re done editing, click the back button at the top to back out to the list of actions.

If you prefer using context menus (a.k.a. right-clicking) instead of looking for buttons, you can right-click an action or step to see the editing options menu.

I personally think the improvements are great, editing is more straightforward, there is no more need to tediously switch in and out of Button mode like we used to, and there are new features like being able to add an icon and description. Overall I think they did a great job modernizing Actions.

megand64229350Author

Participant

I see the problem now. I appreciate you posting your video because when I click on the gear and then click on the arrows to expand, nothing happens. That is why I’ve been so confused. The only way for me to actually expand it is to pull the Actions window out of the side panel and make it free standing. And then I can see the steps. That is a real hassle though! And before you ask, there is no scrolling bar to scroll down to see further below.

D Fosse

Community Expert

@jane-e Ah, I thought they’d fixed that now.

@megand64229350 Let’s see what happens then. If nothing happens in a few days, give a shout here. Then this can be locked and you can repost in Feature Requests. I think a simple copy-paste will do fine, it’s pretty clear what the request is.

jane-e

Community Expert

@D Fosse and @megand64229350

Done!

Jane

D Fosse

Community Expert

There is, revert to “classic actions” from the fly-out menu.

With the new menu, you can click the gear icon to get the individual steps and edit them. But you’re right, there doesn’t seem to be a way to start the action from a random step. That’s an obvious feature request.

This is all part of the “Modern User Interface” that they’re rolling out piece by piece now. Much of it has been rather buggy on release, then fixed, so they seem to be paying attention. I suggest this be moved to Feature Requests.