Backup and restore customized keyboard shortcuts

[bkoopers]

My Adobe Photoshop customized keyboard shortcuts occasionally disappear and revert back to factory default settings and I have to make the changes again. I am using Photoshop release 26.1.0 and Windows 11. What are the directions to backup and restore my customized keyboard shortcuts?

Thanks to anybody who can help.

[Conrad_C · Accepted solution]

You might want to bookmark the following page for reference, because for example it tells you where the custom keyboard shortcut settings files are stored (along with the locations of many other settings):

Preference file functions, names, locations | Photoshop

Open that page and scroll down to the Windows section, in the part of the table where the first column says “Keyboard Shortcuts Preferences - Contains the user defined settings in the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog.” If you look to the right of that, it says that the settings file, with a .psp filename extension, is stored at:

Users\[user name]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop [version]\Adobe Photoshop [version] Settings

If you already back up your entire computer regularly, then all you have to do is locate a previous version of your keyboard shortcut settings from that path location in the backup, and restore that to the same location on your computer.

After you’ve restored your settings file to that path location, it should show up in the Set menu in the Keyboard Shortcuts and Menus dialog box so that you can apply it again.

[bkoopers]

Thanks. That is exactly what I wanted to know. I tried it and it works.

[BrettN]

In the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog box, where you customize the settings, there are options for managing your changes. In the upper right, near the OK and Cancel buttons, you have the following items: 

• Set drop-down
• "Save all changes to the current set of shortcuts" button
• "Create a new set based on the current set of shortcuts" button 
• "Delete the current set of shortcuts" button

The three buttons interact with Set drop-down:

1. The first (on the left) will save your current settings to the set currently selected in the drop-down. This is greyed out until you make some changes, at which point a temporary set is created (it will have the same name as the last selected set with "(modified)" added to the name. When you click this button, the set will be updated and "(modified)" will be removed from the name.
2. The second button (in the middle) creates a new set that will appear in the Set drop-down. When you create it, you will be asked to name it and save a .kys file. The default location is the Keyboard Shortcuts folder in your Presets folder. This file is your saved shortcuts and can be used to restore your changes or move them to another computer. Just copy this file to the presets folder mentioned.
3. The third button (on the right) will deleted the currently selected set (unless you have the "Photoshop Defaults" set selected), including sending the .kys file to your Trash/Recycle bin.

You don't have to use the .kys and saved sets, simply clicking OK will save the settings into your preference settings (.psp) files. But if you reset your preferences or install a new version of Photoshop and do not migrate your settings, these settings can be lost.

[Trevor.Dennis]

Custom workspaces can save custom shortcuts, toolbars and menus, so it might be that you changed to a different workspace, and that reset the shortcuts.

So make use of that feature and create a custom workspace of your own.  If you ever need the default settings, switch back to Essentials.  What I suggest is that you creat a tiny action that sets and resets your custom workspace, and trigger it with a Function key.  That way when things get messed up, like when you have moved panels around, just pres that F key and a second later, everything is back to the way you like it.