Today’s Question: My computer died, and I have configured a new computer with Lightroom Classic. When I open my previous catalog, that seems to work. However, I just went to edit a photo and export it, and all my export presets are missing. Where would those have been saved?
Tim’s Quick Answer: By default, all your various Lightroom Classic presets are stored in a folder within the user folder in your operating system. Fortunately, however, it is very easy to determine where your presets are saved through the Preferences dialog.
More Detail: When you migrate to a new computer you can transfer all your presets from Lightroom Classic so they’ll be available on the new computer. You just need to know where those presets are, and then copy the applicable folders to the new computer.
By default, the various presets for Lightroom Classic are stored in folders within your user folder through the operating system. There is also an option to store presets with the catalog instead. Regardless, it is very easy to determine where the presets are stored.
Start by going to the Preferences dialog, which can be brought up by choosing Edit > Preferences from the menu on Windows or Lightroom Classic > Preferences on Macintosh. Go to the Presets tab, and in the Location section toward the bottom you’ll find two buttons, labeled “Show Lightroom Develop Presets” and “Show All Other Lightroom Presets”.
Clicking the first of these buttons will open a window in your operating system with a folder highlighted, and that folder contains your Develop presets. Clicking the second button will similarly bring up a window with a highlighted folder, representing the folder that contains additional folders full of various presets. For example, the presets from the Export dialog are found in a folder called “Export Presets”.
I recommend making sure you’re aware of where the folders are so that you can recover them from a backup if that ever becomes necessary. In this case, for example, if you have a backup of the computer that failed, you can use that backup to restore the files and place them in the applicable location based on how Lightroom Classic is configured on the new computer.
