Backing up Collections

Question

I have thousands of images assigned to collections in Bridge. How do I back up all this work so I can restore it on another laptop? At some point I will get a new laptop and I don't want to have to recreate all this work. Thank you!

Stephen Marsh · Answer

* filename.collection = Smart Collection (live saved search criteria, the files and file paths are dynamiclly generated)

* filename.filelist = Collection (saved image files and file path locations)

Windows (the AppData directory may be hidden):

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Bridge 2021\Collections\

Mac (the user library may be hidden):

/Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Bridge 2021/Collections/

Once you have moved the .filelist collection files, you would need to edit the collection using the GUI in Bridge to relink missing assets, or manually update the file paths in a text editor with find/replace.

For .collection smart collection files, there is no GUI to relink so you have to use the text editor approach to update the URI info.

Links to previous forum discussions that may help with further info:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/bridge-discussions/transfering-collections/m-p/9687219

https://community.adobe.com/t5/bridge-discussions/is-it-possible-to-export-sync-bridge-collections-across-two-computers/m-p/12095041

https://community.adobe.com/t5/bridge-discussions/correct-way-to-migrate-collections/m-p/10424764