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How to relocate the OS folder containing my presets

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Gabor Revesz

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Jan 20, 2017
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Hello,

I would like to use a different OS (not Lightroom) folder to store my presets than the default one. How do I do that?

Any help would be highly appreciated. Thanks in advance,

Gabor
 
It's technically possible to redirect using a symbolic link. Where do you want to store them?
 
There is the "Store Presets with Catalog" option that will let your preset reside in the same folder as the catalog file. As Victoria suggests, a symbolic link is necessary if you want to store elsewhere.
In addition to Victoria's "Where" question, I ask "Why do you want to do this?" There may be better alternatives than the two mentioned.
 
Thank you, both of you, Victoria and clee01 for the response.

To answer your questions, I store my catalog on an external drive, which I take with me for my travels when I use my laptop (as opposed to my desktop at home). It'd be nice to not have to worry about the presets to be available, but they sit on my internal hard drive at home by default. So I was thinking I could specify a folder for them just like I did for my catalog. In fact, the best option for me would be to store the Lightroom Settings folder on my external hard drive, but I don't see any way to do that just as easily as I did it with my catalog.

Is there a (easy) way to do that?
If not, is there a reason for that and what is it?
If not, why not? May I suggest that option as an improvement for the next version?

Thank you,

Gabor
 
As Cletus said, you can use 'Store Presets with this Catalog'. That means they will be stored on your external hard disk, inside the catalog folder on that disk.
To follow up on Johan's comments,
  • In LR Preferences on the Presets tab, check the checkbox labeled "Store Presets with Catalog". This will create a folder alongside your LR catalog file labeled "Lightroom Settings".
  • This folder is not immediately populated with your existing presets, You can find your existing presets in folders found in "/Users/[UserID]/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom/" .
  • Copy those folders to the "Lightroom Settings" folder and restart LR. Your presets will now new on the same drive in the same folder as your LR catalog file.
 
Thank you all very much for the advice! Is there any disadvantage of using Store Presets With Catalog option?

Thanks again,

Gabor
 
Is there any disadvantage of using Store Presets With Catalog option?
If you install third-party presets (with the suppliers instructions) they will most likely be installed in the default location, and not with the Catalog.
This leads to the questions- "Where are my presets?"
 
If you install third-party presets (with the suppliers instructions) they will most likely be installed in the default location, and not with the Catalog.
This leads to the questions- "Where are my presets?"
Third Party develop presets that self install usually install in a folder inside the User folder that is found inside the Develop Presets folder. While they could install in the Global location, a really smart developer will ask what folder do you want the Develop preset installed
Many Third party Plugins ask where you want to install the Plugin. I have found that adding a Plugin folder in the "Lightroom Settings" folder will let your Plugins travel with your catalog just like presets.
 
Thank you all very much for the advice! Is there any disadvantage of using Store Presets With Catalog option?

If you read that post that Hal referred you to in post #6, you'll see that there are several items which are not included in the Lightroom Settings folder which is created with the "Store Presets with this Catalog" option. Some/all of them may not apply to you, but you at least need to know that they are domiciled only on the system in use when/if you start making changes to those settings. Note particularly that the Lightroom Preferences will exist on both of your systems, so any change you make will need to be made on the other system as well.

Not included in that article (strange, I thought I'd updated it), any Camera or Lens profiles which you create or download for use in Lightroom are not stored inside the Lightroom folder, they are in fact stored in the Adobe>Camera Raw folder, so using any of these would need to be added to both systems.
 
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