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December 18, 2024
Question

How To Back up My Ps Brushes Before Update to Ps 2025?

  • December 18, 2024
  • 2 replies
  • 2233 views

I work on a Win 11 Pro PC.

 

I want to back up all my Ps Brushes before updating from Ps 2024 to Ps 2025. And, I want to back them up to a folder on my PC that is not in the Adobe presets file hierarchy on my C: drive.

 

I know there's an "Export Brushes" option in Ps under the brush tips panel under the Settings asterisk.

 

Here's the key background info & my question. I have a ton of brushes (Adobe, Web, custom that I've created). I have them organized into topline folders and multiple sub-folders under the topline folders. The sub-folders are where my actual brushes reside. If I click on a topline folder name and then Export will that capture all the sub-folders and the specific brushes (.abr's) within them?

 

I want to retain the organizational structure and not lose any of the individual brushes when creating brush backups. If I have to back up all sub-folders and brushes individually, I think Adobe will be up to Ps 2026 before I get that finished. If I only must click/export the topline folders, then I have about 10 categories (with multiple sub-categories each) of brushes to export.

 

Thx! I hope that makes sense .... I hope no one says I have too many brushes!   😉

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2 replies

Stephen Marsh
Community Expert
Community Expert
December 18, 2024

Don't forget to save any custom actions to .atn file:

 

https://prepression.blogspot.com/2017/01/photoshop-custom-action-file-backup.html

 

 

Trevor.Dennis
Community Expert
Community Expert
December 18, 2024

I'd say that Actions are the things I have lost most often with updates.  It can be scary if you have a lot of them, so check Stephen's links for sure if you use them.

Stephen Marsh
Community Expert
Community Expert
December 22, 2024

Here is the file I downloaded.  Is it the correct file?

 

When I open the file here is the result:  If I try to execute the " file " Open Photoshop Presets & Setting Folders" I get exactly what my Dec 20 post shows.  NO script runs that produces what you claim should show in any Windows Explorer Window.  Double clicking on that files produces this:

 


@lvartist 

 

You show a .zip compressed archive file. You need to decompress the .zip file and extract the .jsx file and execute that.

 

https://prepression.blogspot.com/2017/11/downloading-and-installing-adobe-scripts.html

 

You can also visit the raw code page and save/download that page to your computer, renaming from a .txt extension to .jsx

 

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MarshySwamp/Backup-Photoshop-Settings-Universal/refs/heads/main/Open%20Photoshop%20Presets%20%26%20Settings%20Folders

Trevor.Dennis
Community Expert
Community Expert
December 18, 2024

That's exactly what I do.  My Photoshop assets are in My Docs folders with shortcuts to those folders placed in the presets folders.

C:\Users\[Your User Name]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop 2025\Presets\Brushes

 

If you do forget and find you have lost your presets, then you should find that the previous version with still have some content, but it only goes back one major version

 

If you create new brush .abr groups and export them, then they will be saved to the Photoshop presets\brushes folder, so you'll need to move then to your new central location manually.

 

https://helpx.adobe.com/nz/photoshop/kb/preference-file-names-locations-photoshop.html