After Effect User Presets folder cant sync with google drive on my MAC

[세환32048677xcou]

I’m using Google Drive for Desktop on my Mac.

I have set my Documents folder to sync with Google Drive.

All folders within the Documents folder sync perfectly, except for the After Effects folder, which shows a ”!” error and fails to sync.

The issue occurs specifically with this folder:

Documents/After Effects 2025/User Presets/(Adobe)

Troubleshooting attempts:

• I have uninstalled and reinstalled After Effects.

• I have completely removed and reinstalled Google Drive for Desktop.

• However, the issue persists.

How can I get this folder to sync properly?

My After Effects folder on my Macbook Pro

 (Documents/After Effects 2025/User Presets/(Adobe)) won’t sync on Google Drive for Desktop, showing a ”!” error. Other folders sync fine. I reinstalled After Effects and Google Drive, but the issue persists. How can I fix this?

[nishu_kush]

Hi there,

Thanks for writing in. I don't think the sync is affected by After Effects. My guess is that it could be the permission restriction on the folders or some setting in Google Drive. You might need to reach out to the Google Drive support.

Let us know how it goes with them.

Thanks,
Nishu

[세환32048677xcou]

Thank you for your response. However, what I am curious about is whether the special characters, such as parentheses ”()”, in the folder name, as seen in the attached image (e.g., ”(Adobe)” folder), could be causing an issue. Additionally, the folder icon appears different from the others, resembling a symbolic link. Could this be a potential problem?

The reason I ask is that other folders, which do not have this kind of icon and do not contain special characters in their names, sync properly with Google Drive. Can you confidently say that this is unrelated to the issue?

[sskaz]

I ran into a similar problem syncing my AE presets with a different syncing app. I store my presets in another folder (that my sync app handles), and then replace the existing User Presets alias with a new alias to my syncing presets folder, and rename it to “User Presets” just like the original. (Bonus: do this for each version of AE you may have installed, on all machines you use, so your presets are always available.)

The only problem is remembering to do it for each new version of After Effects.

[세환32048677xcou]

Hi thanks for commenting

May i ask you how can i store preset folder into another folder?

when i install AE on my macOS

automatically AE makes user presets like

~/Documents/Adobe/After Effects 2025/User Presets/(Adobe)/

like this so under AE2025 folder

it has User presets User Library and Video Library folder

i know this is made by default setting of AE

but i dont know how it can be installed in different location to sync my google drive

is there any options those AE2025 folder can make in the other folder..? 

i google this things

but couldnt find any solution

if you dont mind can you tell me more detail?

it will be really appreciated 

[sskaz]

You can make a folder to store your presets anywhere on your computer where Google Sync is already working. If it’s correctly syncing the rest of your ~/Documents folder, then:

1. If you don’t have any custom presets already, you need to make at least one for this to work. Then quit AE.
2. Make a new folder in ~/Documents. Call it “AE Presets” or whatever you like (the name here does not matter).
3. Move your existing presets in ‘~/Documents/Adobe/After Effects 2025/User Presets’ into your new presets folder. (See step 1)
4. Delete the ‘~/Documents/Adobe/After Effects 2025/User Presets’ folder.
5. Make an alias from your new ‘~/Documents/AE Presets” folder, and move into to ‘~/Documents/Adobe/After Effects 2025/’
6. Rename the alias “User Presets”, to match the original folder AE automatically made.
7. Reopen AE and check the Effects & Presets panel.
8. Twirl open *Animation Presets and you’ll see two folders, “Presets” and “User Presets”. (Presets are the built-in ones stored in /Apps/After Effects YYYY/Presets, and “User Presets” is the new one you just made. If your new presets folder is empty, it will not show up.)

After Effects will not overwrite the alias, and instead will traverse inside it. Any new presets you save in AE will be saved into your custom presets folder.

I attached a screenshot of how it looks in my ~/Documents/Adobe folder. This is what I’ve been doing for years across many versions of AE and simultaneousy on multiple workstations at once and it works great.

[nishu_kush]

Great workaround shared by sskaz. Let us know if it works for you.

Thanks,
Nishu

[ToolfarmJP]

I guess the issue is related to the permission of the folder. If you are familiar with the use of command line, you launch Terminal.app and type in sudo chmod -R 777 {directory path} to arrange the folder permission.

[세환32048677xcou]

Thanks but i think the folder that i have problem sync with google drive is

~/Documents/Adobe/After Effects 2025/User Presets/(Adobe)/

this " (adobe) " folder

when i right click of this folder

its dosent show of permission option that normally when i do same thing on other folder

shows permissions (like wrting reading etc)

and im worrying about if i use code what you told me can makes little sercurity issue