Why does photoshop delete preferences every update and how do you get them back?

[cotteniej]

Very annoyed that every year my preferences and layout in photoshop are deleted after updating to the new version.

How do you get them back without having to painstakingly set them all again?

[Myra Ferguson]

You can use Advanced options in the Creative Cloud Desktop app to select Import Previous settings and preferences either with Auto-update or if you manually update your apps.

[D Fosse]

Preferences are version specific, and there's a reason for that: a setting may not have exactly the same meaning with new code.

By popular demand there is now a checkbox in the installer to migrate settings and preferences, but it is slightly risky. Not in the sense that you break anything, but preferences that are corrupted or just slightly misaligned can give very diffuse problems and unpredictable behavior, and it's often impossible to tell where the problem really is.

The preferences file is prone to corruption because it is rewritten on every application exit. An irregular shutdown can easily corrupt it. This is in contrast to read-only program files.

Personally I never migrate preferences. I take the opportunity to start with a clean sheet. Ten minutes well spent.

[Trevor.Dennis]

And Photoshop is getting ever more complex now, with a lot more things to get mixed up and cause problems.  I find that I have to reset my Preferences more often than in years gone by.  If that's the price we pay for an app that basically performs genuine magic, then I am more than happy to pay it?