How to Find Presets in Lightroom

Although you can use presets in Lightroom without necessarily knowing where they are stored on the hard drive, knowing how to find presets in Lightroom can help you access their location and copy them to create a backup or solve the issues of Lightroom not seeing them.

How to Find Presets in Lightroom

Lightroom has many advanced tools that allow you to manipulate the exposure and add effects to your images. Usually, you might need to apply the same adjustments to your photos depending on the issues of the camera and lens you are using or to make your photos unique.

Keeping in mind that setting the tools the same way every time can be tedious, and you might even forget the settings you used last time, you might want to save the settings you use as a preset, so you will just be applying your lightroom presets for your real estate images without having to set afresh.

Since Lightroom is versatile, it comes with some built-in presets, allows you to create custom presets, and allows you to download and install presets from third parties. Depending on the Lightroom version and the source of the presets, you can use the following tips to find them in Lightroom.

Locate the Presets From the Lightroom Preferences Dialog

Since you will be using the presets in Lightroom, the best way to find them is to locate them through the Lightroom interface.

Like when accessing the presets directly from the computer’s file explorer or the finder, the steps for locating the presets using the interface might vary across the different Lightroom versions.

1. Launch the Lightroom application and then navigate to the Develop Module. Keeping in mind that Lightroom generally opens in the Library Module by default, you can navigate to the Develop Module by hitting the D key on your keyboard.
2. Open the Lightroom Preference dialog box by navigating to Edit and choosing Preferences if your computer uses a Windows OS or Lightroom and then selecting Preferences if it’s a mac.
3. In the Preferences dialog box that opens, select the Presets tab and click on the Show Lightroom Presets Folder button located halfway through the dialog box page. However, in some Lightroom versions, there will be two options on a Windows computer, and you need to choose the Show Lightroom Develop Presets option.
4. Clicking these buttons will open the Windows File Explorer if you are using a Windows computer or the finder using a mac. Regardless of the operating system, your presets will be stored in the folder named Develop Presets in the open window.
5. If you want to view the preset files or copy them, open the folder by double-clicking it.

Open the Presets Folder Directly From the Computer

If you use a low-end computer or the Lightroom application crashes, you might have issues locating the presets using the interface. The steps for locating the presets through the interface might also change with newer releases of Lightroom, and you might have issues locating them.

The most straightforward way to find the presets without launching Lightroom is to access them directly using Windows Explorer on a Windows PC or the Finder on a mac. Whether you are using the latest version of Lightroom CC or the earlier versions, you can locate the presets using the following steps:

1. Open the local disk C, Users, AppData, Roaming, Adobe, and then Lightroom if you use a Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, or Windows 10 computer.
2. If you are using a Mac OS X platform, navigate to Users, Library, Application Support, Adobe, and then Lightroom.
3. Regardless of the operating system, you should see a Develop Presets folder, which you can double-click and open if you want to copy or view.

Search in the Windows File Explorer or Mac Finder

Sometimes it can be challenging to locate the presets directly from the Windows file explorer of the mac finder if you have reorganized your hard drive folders and interfered with the file locations.

In most cases, this is the reason you will want to find the presets, so you can place them in the appropriate folder where Lightroom can detect them. Remember that presets have a file extension of .xmp on the latest versions of Lightroom and .Irtemplate on the earlier versions, you can search for any of these file extensions directly.

However, note that this method will give you a list of all the files that have these extensions, which might include other files apart from presets. Depending on your operating system, you can use the following steps to find the presets using a mac finder or Windows file explorer.

Windows Computer

A Windows computer allows you to search for documents using the file explorer or the taskbar. To search for the presets files using the taskbar and Windows file explorer: 

1. Press the Windows key on your keyboard or click on the Windows button in the bottom left-hand corner
2. Once the taskbar opens, type .xmp or .Irtemplate depends on the file extension of the presets you are searching for. Usually, Windows will find all the files with that file extension, and you should see a list of files.
3. If no files are found with that file extension, a notification of No Files Found will appear.
4. Alternatively, you can search using the file explorer. Simply right-click on the Windows icon and select File Explorer or hit the keyboard keys Windows + E.
5. Once the explorer window opens, type .xmp or .Irtemplate on the search bar located in the upper right-hand side corner. 
6. Usually, Windows will search and display all the files containing the specified file extension. You can also optimize the search by opening the folder or location where you think the presets are located and then searching from that file explorer window.
7. Once the files get listed, right-click on one of the presets and then choose Open File Location. Usually, this will open the folder in your hard drive that contains the presets. You can then copy the files, locate the Develop Presets folder using the Lightroom interface and then paste the files there if you want them to be visible on Lightroom.

Mac

If you are using a mac, you can find the files with the .xmp or .Irtemplate file extensions using the Finder or Spotlight. Click on the first icon in the Dock to open the Finder and search from the search bar on the top right-hand corner.

Alternatively, you can search using the Spotlight option by clicking on the magnifying glass on the top right-hand corner of the desktop or hitting the keyboard keys Command + Space bar. Regardless of the option, you will get a preview of the files, and you can view the location of the presets.

Frequently Asked Questions

Final Thoughts

Lightroom is flexible and versatile and will allow you to access, copy or delete the presets. Learning how to find presets in Lightroom will help you determine the location of the presets and reorganize them into the correct Develop Presets folder if Lightroom can’t see them.