My photoshop brushes keep on disappearing

[#1]

I made my own brushes i use for lineart and colouring but whenever i turn off the computer, the brushes get deleted or they disappear. This has happened to me multiple times and I really don't want to create the same brushes over and over again. I saved the brush presets and all, i also named them, They do appear in the brush presets but whenever i quit photoshop, it disappears.

[#2 · Accepted solution]

After defining a few brush presets, go Edit > Presets > Preset Manager. 

Select Brushes from the dropdown at the top.

Select your new brushes, (they will have a blue outline) and Save Set

Where do you put your brushes?

What operating system are you using?

What version of Photoshop?

This tells you the file locations.

Photoshop CS6 preference file functions, names, locations

If you are using Windows, the App Data path is probably best, but you need to make hidden files viewable from File Explorer

C:\Users\Your User Name\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CC 2017\Presets\Brushes

[#3]

My brushes are already saved on my laptop, but every time I load them they disappear again. I've had some of them loaded for over a year with no problems. Now I look like a total noob when I open my menu 😉

[#4]

I have the same thing happening since a week, for no reason whatsoever?? Everything worked fine all year long, and suddenly, without any warning or without me changing ANYTHING, every change I ever made is gone. Brushes are gone, Swatches are gone, custom Shapes, ... everything is just disappeared. I spent the whole night re-organizing everything and loading in everything I still had... saved it all. It was there in PS and the preset folder... Now I turn my PC on again, and everything is GONE. Just gone? In PS and in the presets folders. Does anybody have a solution for this? I need to work, my client is getting really impatient and me leaving PS/my PC turned on for the whole week so I dont have to re-do everything each time PS closes/opens again can't be the soution...? If anybody got a fix, I'd appreciate it so much. 😞

[#5]

I had the same problem too. I don't know what to do!!! 

[#6]

I am having the same issue. Load brushes only to have them reset back to default brushes every time I close Photoshop. Ditto for patterns, swatches, etc. I am very frustrated about this. 

[#7]

I am having the exact same problem...!!!!!!!!!! cant find them in the presets - brushes in application , nor in the library - adobe - photoshtop 2020 cc - brushes-    nothing to find...same when I go back in time machine...this is horrible!!!!!

[#8]

Two years later and now I'm having the same problem. Custom shapes disappear too for me!

[#9]

Yep, same here! I have all my brush sets exactly where they are supposed to be on my hard drive. They were there every time I turned on my computer. Just this week they've all disappeared and I have to keep reloading them. Not good. Wish there was a solution for this.

[#10]

AArrggh and again!! Just spent two days organising my brushes just the way I like then PS lost ALL of them! New brushes, folders etc.  If I liked your basic brushes so much I wouldn't have bothered in the first place!

[#11]

I don't even have the option drop down menu for brushes, even though the folder is there and is not hidden, I cnahged it to viewable, how does PS break so bad all the time!?

[#12]

Having the same problem in the newest version of PS 21.0.3; every time I get my brushes loaded and customized, they get wiped out back to the default list when an update to PS occurs. (subscription based).....can anyone let me know how to save the brushes? I'm not seeing the "brushes" option in the dropdown list.

[#13]

Update: After a bit of research I'm thinking that brushes aren't managed in the Preset Manager. I just backed up my brushes and I guess I'll drag-and-drop into the brushes panel when a PS update ocurrs and wipes everything back to defaults.

[#14]

It's hopeless I've tried customer service they remotely took control of my computer said they had to tell my computer that it was ok to save the brushes which that failed to very frustrated I've had to reload all my brushes and styles 3 times this week two updates and a crash called them 3 times without a fix I'm at a loss as to how they can't figure this out. started when I switched to the cloud service thinking about going back to the disc version.

[#15]

same exact problem preset managner does not have the brushes!!!!! cant find all the brushes created, find myself having to reload all the downloaded purchased brushes but cant find the ones I created...does anyone know where they might have been stored that is the brushes that I manually made? 

[#16]

This video has solved the problem for me......     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCdMLIW-ySc&t=3s

[#17]

Same! This is the 3rd time in a week they disappered.  I wont close photoshop and they still vanish as I am working.

[#18]

I am having the exact same issue. I was working on a number of projects last year and earlier this year with no trouble at all. I downloaded a number of Kyle's brushes, created my own brush folders so that I could return to brushes that I particularly liked easily and was able to shut down PS and come back the following day with everything there. But this week everything keeps diappearing apart from a few standard Adobe brushes and 4 random groups of Kyle's brushes. 

I have saved all of the .abr files in the PS Presets folder in my hd and made sure that the total size of brush presets I was loading into PS was not over 1.7GB as I read in another thread that it could be an issue. Hasn't made a jot of difference. I just don't understand what we're supposed to do!

[#19]

I have the exat same problem!!!!!!!!

[#20]

So do I ,exact same  problem and I have the exact same issues with the 4 random groups of Kyle's brushes ,thats all I got ,and I had like a ton of brushes and now they even dissaperead as abr.

[#21]

This just happened to me for the third time! All my downloaded brushes, swatches *poof*

I'm going to cancel this monthly BS and go back to my old disc version. 

[#22]

I had the same problem and made an interesting discovery whilst trying the suggestions on this forum. I downloaded and installed many of the Kyle brush packs and chose 'Open in Photoshop' from the menu. This worked, but the abr files were not installed in the Brushes folder, but instead placed in my temp folder. The brushes were all still in temp even after Photoshop lost them all. Obviously, the preset manager couldn't find them to reload them, so I had to move them all to the presets\brushes folder manually. I am hoping they won't now get lost again. The trouble is, my favourite brushes folder, which took some time to build, is still lost.

[#23]

Oh thanks I'll have a look at that later.