LRC Presets

[Heirloom Bob]

I have backup copies of my Lightroom Classic develop presets stored in various folders on my drive. Is it possible to search and find them all and move them to a single folder and keep the backups there? (Windows 11) Is there a file suffux I can search for to find them?

Bob

[Rob_Cullen]

{Preferences > Presets tab} will show you where all your 'installed to LrC' Develop presets (.XMP files) are located.

eg. {C:\Users\Robert\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\CameraRaw\Settings}

You could copy these (the whole {Settings} folder) to a 'backup' location.

Personally, I have a folder in {My Documents} where I store copies of the .XMPs (eg. my own User presets) and any presets I might have downloaded from third parties.

[Heirloom Bob]

I understand copying them to their own folder. My issues is finding them when they are stored in multiple folders as a backup. Are all preset xmp files so i can seach my drive for them?

[Rob_Cullen]

All 'current' Develop Presets are .XMP files, but the "XMP" file-type suffix is used for many types of files (eg. Sidecar metadata files.).

So no joy for searching for "XMP" unless you understand the differences.

Even identifying 'old' develop presets with the old .LRTEMPLATE file-type is problematic as this file-type can be (and is still is) used for 'Local' Brush Presets also, etc.

The 'purpose' of a preset is encoded in the text of the file which determines 'How' the preset is interpreted in LrC.

Your search will just be a time consuming manual search- hence my suggestion just to copy the currently installed presets in the {Settings} folder.

[Heirloom Bob]

Your idea is sound but I have presets in various folders on my drive and some are NOT currently installed, so not in my presets folder. 😞

[Rob_Cullen]

I can only suggest you use Windows File Explorer (or "Everything" *) to search and move any files that you suspect to be Lightroom Presets and place them in one consolidated folder, in {My Documents}. There is nothing that will automatically find them for you (just like any document or file you might save in your system!)

You will be looking for .XMP, .LRTEMPLATE, and possibly .ZIP containers of presets.

Do NOT move any files from within the {Settings} folders that LrC uses to store installed presets.

(If you use [Save metadata to Files] for raw files in LrC then searching for .XMP will find thousands of sidecar files that are not presets.)

*ps. I use and suggest you try a free app that is faster and more 'friendly' that Windows search functions-

Download "Everything" from-

https://www.voidtools.com/