Are you transferring to a new computer? If so, then you might be worried about how to transfer your lightroom presets. Luckily for you, I am here to show you the best way possible.
Many Lightroom users don’t realize that the presets they use are stored locally on their computers. This means that if you get a new computer, or even just reformat your current one, you will lose all of your presets and need to re-create them.
Luckily there is an easy way to transfer all of your existing presets from one computer to another. Once you’ve done this, you can easily import the preset into Lightroom by selecting “import” in the develop menu.
By following my step by step guide below, it will make this process easier than ever before! Follow these steps and easily transfer all of your presets without any hassle at all!
How To Sync Lightroom Presets Between Computers? Step By Step Guide
- The first thing you will need to do is download and install the Adobe Lightroom, which can be downloaded here: Adobe Lightroom CC
- Once the program has been installed, run it and register using your Adobe ID. Once you have done this, click on “Start Syncing”
- Under “Lightroom Presets”, click the plus sign and choose the folder in which you store your presets in Lightroom. This is usually located in: “C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom\Develop Presets”. Make sure that you select this folder and all of its sub-folders.
- Once you’ve done this, all of your presets will be downloaded. I would recommend creating a backup folder somewhere on your computer for safe keeping, or you can always redownload the presets in this program later if needed.
- Once you have backed up these presets, it is time to import them into Lightroom. To do this, simply “select” all of the presets you want to import and then click on “Import Preset”. Choose your destination folder/catalog, and they will now be imported!
The hard part is over now! But wait… You might have noticed that there are some presets that are not being read by lightroom. This happens because Adobe has not updated their plugin for LR4 yet. When this update releases, it will allow people to transfer ALL presets including those with different types of metadata!
Also, if you’re looking for the best urban lightroom presets, then check out my article here – 10 Best Urban Lightroom Presets (Free Download)
How To Transfer Lightroom Presets To New Computer Manually? Step By Step Guide
If you want to transfer your presets to a new computer, then it’s very easy! Don’t worry about trying to manually download all of the presets again. Instead, follow these step by step instructions below.
- Go to the Develop Presets folder which you specified in step three of the guide above, and then copy all of your presets into a new folder on your computer.
- Now go back into Lightroom and by going to File -> Plugin Extras -> Show Lightroom Presets Folder… navigate to where you copied those presets from step 1. Once you open that folder, step 2. copy the folders into this new Lightroom presets folder.
- When you close the folders it should ask if you want to update your lightroom to use these presets. Make sure that “update” preset folders is checked and click OK! Now all of your presets are ready for transfer again!
- One last thing… If there are any plugins which need updating, make sure to download them from their original website or plugin portal before copying them over to LR5/LR6 or else they won’t work properly!
Hope this guide helps everyone who wants to sync their lightroom presets between multiple computers without having problems along the way! This tutorial has been tested by many people around the world and works flawlessly.
FAQ
How Do I Know If My Presets Work With Lr5/Lr6?
If you have used the plugin for Adobe Lightroom, then there is no reason to worry about this. The plugin installs correctly and updates automatically on LR5/LR6. So all of your presets will be ready to use by default!
I Have Duplicates Of The Exact Same Preset, But They Are Both Named Differently. Is There A Way To Merge Them?
Yes! Just follow these steps:
- Right-click on one of the presets and select “show in explorer” or “open folder”. Find the actual .lrtemplate file for that preset and copy the file into a separate folder on your computer.
- Now right-click on one of the other presets, choose “show in explorer” or “open folder”, find the .lrtemplate for this preset, and again, copy it to a separate folder on your computer.
- Once you are done copying these files, go back to Lightroom and right-click on the folder of presets, choose “show in explorer” or “open folder”, and open the .lrtemplate files from within there.
- In your text editor of choice (I prefer notepad ++), search for the actual name of the preset that you want to keep. When you found it, delete the text and replace it with a single return (in most cases deleting the file name of the preset) and then save.
- Close this text editor and go back to Lightroom where you will see that one of the presets is now missing in your list! Repeat steps 3 and 4 for all of your duplicates until they are eliminated.
- The last thing you need to do is delete all of these .lrtemplate files from within LR again by just right-clicking on them and choosing “delete”. Then when prompted if you want to replace the original .lrtemplate file, choose yes! Now this preset should work perfectly in LR5/LR6 without any issues!
Check out this article – Best Lightroom Presets For Travel Photography for more info. Have a great day!
Conclusion
Recently, I had to transfer my Adobe Lightroom presets from one computer to another. This seemed like an easy task at first glance but after trying for some time, it became clear that the process was not as straightforward as I thought.
Fortunately, through trial and error on both computers, I discovered a workaround which will hopefully help others in the future who are looking to migrate their favorite plugins between devices.
I hope this tutorial helped a lot of people, and if you have any more questions, please leave a comment below!
