FAQ: How to reset (trash) preferences in After Effects?

[caroline_edits]

It can be really frustrating when After Effects starts misbehaving. One of the most efficient ways to fix this is to reset After Effects preference files. Trashing preferences resets the program to its factory defaults.

Resetting preferences will undo most of your customization such as length of your default transitions, brightness of the user interface, labels colors, changes that you've made to your audio hardware settings and more. Some changes won't be affected though, such as changes that you've made to memory allocation for After Effects and other Adobe apps, new workspaces that you've created and some other stuff. It's worth noting that changes that you've made to existing workspaces (changes such as resizing panels and moving them) will be reset to defaults.

Preferences that you set for scratch disks, however, are saved with your projects. Whenever you open a project, it automatically defaults to the scratch disks you selected for it when you set up that project.

Here is how you can reset the preferences:

Press Ctrl + Alt + Shift (Windows) or Command + Option + Shift (Mac OS) while launching After Effects. You can release the keys when you see the Startup Repair Options dialogue box.

Manage Plugins – Open the plugin manager to enable or disable plugins one by one, or in a batch. 

Reset Preferences – Click the Reset Preferences button to permanently reset all preferences to default settings.

Start in Safe Mode – You can create a one-time After Effects session using default preferences by clicking the Start in Safe Mode button. You will also get an option to disable third-party plugins. It helps you identify if any of your current preferences are corrupt and need a reset. If After Effects works best in safe mode, you can reset preferences permanently the next time you launch After Effects.

If you don't see the list of your recent projects on the Welcome Screen the next time you launch After Effects, the preferences were reset correctly.

NOTE: Nothing happens to the project files; it's just that After Effects's recent directories are wiped off too. Navigate to your project location and open it from there.

[Brandon Kraemer]

I'd like to point out that while this works and is all well and good... it's not a small deal to AE users to rebuild your preferences and the biggest culprits of corrupt prefs seem to be workspaces and open extentions in your workspaces.  If we're going to have all these options for customizing the interface, they need to be more stable.

[Malachi5E69]

will my plugins like magic bullet and twixtor and sapphire still be there?

[Warren Heaton]

Yes, 3rd party plug-ins like Magic Bullet, Twixtor, and Sapphire will still be there.

Resetting the preferences does not uninstall plug-ins.

[Neamat0101]

it doesnt work for me. i pres and hold down Control-Shift-Alt but nothing happens. what should i do?

[seank47951705]

Garbage.  This is garbage advice from a garbage corporation peddling buggy, cumbersome products.  If you're having trouble opening AE, this is not the solution.  

Optomize your products Adobe!  And give use stable interfaces! It's actually not to much to ask that you programs work as intended.

[seank47951705]

SOLVED:  First, do not reset your preferences.  That's nonsense.  Second, right-click (on Win) and "run as administrator".


Why is running with Admin rights the work around for this Adobe?? Fix your products. 

[pippo.lives]

but if we have macs???

[Warren Heaton]

Nine times out of ten, if your Mac meets the requirements to run Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, or pick whichever Adobe application you like, then your Creative Cloud applications are likely to run fine.  Also, bug fixes for macOS are rolled out fairly quickly.  

But, unexpected things happen even on the most stable of platforms.  Resetting the preferences is one troubleshooting step.

[DANIEL JAMES5CE7]

I agree whole heartedly with the above statement!

I'm a Graphic Design student and was excited about getting a chance to see what the adobe suite software could do but I have been let down by constant issues with interfaces and am left wondering why this software is considered indusrty grade? It's clunky, full of bugs and behind the times. Why would anybody pay for this!?

I'm having second thoughts about subscribing to any of your packages in the future as you seem like a company that doesn't care about fixing these issues or making your glitcy interface user friendly.

[Warren Heaton]

What's that phrase?  Your mileage will vary.  How well Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, Premiere Pro, InDesign, and Audition (among others) perform is directly proportional to your hardware configuration.  If you're trying to edit 2GB layered PSD files on a computer with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, it's not going to work so well.  Creating memes for social media?  Have at it!

I guess what I'm getting at is being aware of the system requirements and often exceeding those is important.

Twenty-five years ago, you might have seen a graphic design job posting with "Photoshop experience a plus", but now?  It's absolutely required.

[Edible Visual]

So if I have 64Gb RAM, an M1 Max chip and 4 terabytes of storage, then After Effects shouldn't crash multiple times a day, and I don't need to have my autosave set to 2 minute intervals?

[Warren Heaton]

That's a very good hardware configuration for After Effects.

 Assuming the M1 Max passes Apple Diagnostics (formerly called the Apple Hardware Test) and no macOS level kernel panics are taking place, frequent crashes are most likely a software configuration issue ranging from the combination of versions being used to other things like fonts, plug-ins, addons, and/or extensions.  Safe Mode in After Effects should help to isolate an issue.

I've found macOS Ventura 13.6.5 with After Effects 23.6 and 24.3 to be stable and macOS Sonoma 14.4.1 seems to be good as well.  I usually stay one full OS version behind on my work machine unless new hardware requires otherwise.

As far as auto-save goes, set that interval to whatever you prefer. 

[Warren Heaton]

You're right, resetting the preferences is not always the solution; however, for the times it is needed, thank goodness it's so easy, right?

Side note:  If After Effects won't launch, resetting the preferences is definitely something to try.  More advanced users certainly can opt to move the current preferences file to the desktop rather than reset it.

[elliottmorus]

Im afraid that the stock answer from adobe support is to delete preferences and start again. This is not the solution for the majority of issues, and the bugs in AE are getting worse with each "upgrade". Support from Adobe is unfortunately severly lacking, so maybe the 'developers' should concentrate on fixing current builds before hastily releasing another clumsy upgrade to appease the ego. Has Adobe overstretched?

[Warren Heaton]

Restoring application preferences to the default is a common troubleshooting step for software - any software.  Yes, it's not always the solution, but it's in no way unique to Adobe.

[elliottmorus]

I agree with you Warren and thanks for your reply. 

[Nykk_Deetronic]

Thanks! Opening Adobe Clreative Cloud Windows APP and LShift+CTRL+ALT + click on program will restore default settings and programs finally starts! Thanks!!! 🙂

[carlislecreative]

Will this fix the bug where anytime I move a layer mask, it goes from Add or whatever it is set to, to None? 

[Shyanna5CF9]

My after effects keeps resetting preferences automatacally and my files cant open know more cause it says it is unreadable i dont want that does anybody know how to fix it

[suresh24856875xp9t]

Dear Team,

Really it works....amazing thanks to you all. I am happy that someone answered to this question. Really this helps.

The below one really worked....

"To reset preferences and plug-in cache at the same time, hold down Control-Shift-Alt (Windows) or Command-Shift-Option (Mac OS) while the application is starting. Release the keys when the splash screen appears."

Best Regards,

Suri

[Mtima248915317iwb]

Hi, i've followed your instructions and mine doesn't say delete preferences rather it says 'do you want this app to make changes to your computer', but thing is i'm on a work deadline...so is there no other way to get mode, trkMatt? PLEAE HELP, it's urgent...oww and i'm using aftereffect 2022.

[John26029487lpfe]

Yeah problem is it doesn't work. I press alt while launching AE and nothing happens. I try it before, during, and after clicking to launch. What sort of exquisite Japanese video game savant finger timing do you need to have to hit alt at the precise nanosecond required to make this work, and why isn't there simply a "Reset Preferences" menu option? F? F? S?

[Warren Heaton]

Are you holding Control and Alt?

If that is not working as expected, go to Edit > Preferences > General and click "Reveal Preferences in Explorer" at the bottom left.  This opens an Explorer window and selects the After Effects Prefs text document.  For example, if using After Effects version 22.6, a file named "Adobe After Effects 22.6 Prefs.txt" should be revealed.  Quit After Effects and then delete this file or move it to the Desktop.  If moving the Pref text document to the Desktop, I usually renamed it with the date and time, something like "Adobe After Effects 22.6 Prefs - 20221023 1158.txt".

[EJ28469558xmfl]

its not giving me the option to use control-shilft-alt, nothing comes up - is there a way to fix this??