Is there a way to save and restore EVERY setting and preference?

[POwens]

Most of the time when you're having some tech issue, the first thing out of an Adobe Tech Support person's mouth is - "let's reset all your preferences and settings".   But there seems little recognition that our prefs and settings are completely essential to our work, and there are SO MANY files and various settings that a factory reset of Premiere is typically worse for us than the problem we've called/emailed in for.   The number of times I've simply given up on a tech support call becasue I simply can't contemplate the reset is....MANY.

Is there a way to save EVERY setting and preference somewhere before blasting everything back to factory state?   And then a way to bring all of those back once the tech has discovered (as is typical) that, no, that wasn't the issue?  

Part of this issue is also the multiplicity of locations the settings and prefs are stored in.  If there was ONE file or folder, it would make it all so much easier.

I consider this an absolutely crucial tool.

[MarekMularczyk]

If I remember correctly, preferences are saved in a folder on your computer and one of the ways you can reset preferences is to delete this file. So maybe this file could be backed-up somewhere else and then restored later?

Just a thought. I wonder what others are thinking. Maybe there is another way.

[mattchristensen]

@POwens you're right, it's very disruptive to fully reset your application settings. Unfortunately I'd say most of the times people suggest it, it's also not going to work. Truly "corrupt" or "bad" preferences are very rare. They do happen, but it's rare.

In your user home folder, in the Documents folder, you should find Adobe > Premiere Pro [version] > [number] > Profile-[username]. In that Profile-[username] you'll see "Adobe Premiere Pro Prefs" which is the main preference file for application-level preferences. 

Really though, you should copy/back up the entire Profile folder. You can always then replace the backup if resetting the preferences didn't solve your issue.

[POwens]

Hi Matt,

For sure, backing up that one folder is a big help.   BUT, I think I'm right when I say that not every personal setting one has ever saved is in there?   For example, I'm not at all sure where export presets, Lumetri presets, Audio and Video Effects presets, Overlay Settings, and many more are actually stored, and I think at least some of these are stored outside that user profile fodler?   Happy to be corrected if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember a tech support agent guiding me to other settings locations within /Library or ~/Library?   It's also true of course that there are site settings and Project settings, and where are they?

[mattchristensen]

@POwens it's difficult for me to confidently say everything is in there, but, the things you listed are all in that profile folder. Look inside there and you'll find:

• all effect presets are in "Effect Presets and Custom Items.prfpset"
• /Settings/Overlay Presets contains the overlay prests
• /Layouts contains workspaces
• /Mac (or /Win) contains keyboard shortcuts presets
• Installed Guides.guides contains any saved Monitor guide lines

The one exception is Export Presets, because those are saved in the equivalent folder but for Media Encoder. And so, those won't be removed by resetting Pr preferences anyway.

[POwens]

OK, that's all very good to know Matt, that at least gives me a little more confidence.