Photoshop Elements Tutorial: How to Move Actions When You Upgrade PSE

As if it’s not hard enough to install actions into Photoshop Elements, what happens to your actions when you decide to upgrade to the latest version of PSE?

The unfortunate answer is that you have to re-install the suckers.

Luckily, you can, in most cases, just copy the files from your old version of Elements to the new one.  Here’s what you do:

For actions installed into Photo Effects

1. Close or Quit Elements – this isn’t the same as hiding or minimizing.
2. Navigate to the Photo Effects folder on your hard drive where you installed your actions into the old version of PSE.  You can find instructions for the path specific to your version of PSE and your operating system here.
3. Open the Photo Effects folder and copy all files related to the actions that you want to transfer.  Make sure your folder is sorting by name rather than type, so that you can grab all related files together.  (I probably shouldn’t admit this, but I copy ALL the files in the old Photo Effects, including the actions that Adobe put there in the first place. As far as I know, Adobe doesn’t change these actions from year to year, and I never use them anyway.  So I’m not worried terribly about overwriting new Adobe tricks.  If you are, don’t Copy All, just copy the specific files you want to transfer.)
4. Navigate to the Photo Effects file in your new version of PSE.  It should be in the same location, just in the directory for the new version rather than the old.  You can look up the location here if you’d like some guidance.
5. Paste the files into this Photo Effects folder (for the upgraded Elements).
6. Navigate to the Mediadatabase file in the new version and delete it.  Look up the location for your version of Elements and your operating system here, if you need it.
7. Open Elements and let it process.  Remember that this part takes a long time – don’t touch your computer, and ignore it if PSE says it’s not responding.  It will eventually respond.  If you do interrupt Elements, it will look like your Effects Palette is incomplete or empty and you’ll need to close Elements, return to mediadatabase, delete it, and reopen PSE to let it process again.

For actions installed into the Action Player

1. Close or Quit Elements – this isn’t the same as hiding or minimizing.
2. Navigate to the Workflow Panels/Actions folder on your hard drive where you installed your actions into the old version of PSE.  You can find instructions for the path here.
3. Open this Actions folder and copy the actions that you want to transfer.
4. Navigate to the Workflow Panels/Actions file in your new version of PSE.  It should be in the same location, just in the directory for the new version rather than the old.  You can look up the location here if you’d like some guidance.
5. Paste the files into this Actions folder (for the upgraded Elements).
6. Open Elements.  And that’s it!

Important Notes:  

• This works for upgrading Elements on the same computer, or transferring your actions to a new computer.  On a new computer, you’d just need to copy your files to a thumb drive or CD so that you can paste them into the new Photo Effects folder.
• Remember that actions can be installed into EITHER Photo Effects OR the action player, but not both.  So you can’t decide to switch methods when you’re moving your actions.
• The action files for Elements 7 and up, or at least Elements 7-10, are the same.  So those files are completely interchangeable between versions.  However, if you’re upgrading from Elements 6 or prior to Elements 7 or later, you will need to get the updated version of the files from the action maker.