Manage action sets

You can create and organize sets of task-related actions that can be saved to disk and transferred to other computers.

Note: Any actions that you create are automatically listed in the Actions palette, but to truly save an action and not risk losing it if you delete your preferences file (Illustrator) or Actions palette file (Photoshop), you have to save it as part of an action set.

Save a set of actions

Select a set.

If you want to save a single action, first create an action set and move the action to the new set.
Choose Save Actions from the Actions palette menu.
Type a name for the set, choose a location, and click Save.
You can save the file anywhere. You can save only the entire contents of a set in the Actions palette, not individual actions.

Note: (Photoshop only) If you place the saved action‑set file in the Presets/Actions folder inside the Adobe Photoshop CS3 program folder, the set will appear at the bottom of the Actions palette menu after you restart the application.

(Photoshop only) Press Ctrl+Alt (Windows) or Command+Option (Mac OS) when you choose the Save Actions command to save the actions in a text file. You can use this file to review or print the contents of an action. However, you can’t reload the text file back into Photoshop.

Load a set of actions

By default, the Actions palette displays predefined actions (shipped with the application) and any actions you create. You can also load additional actions into the Actions palette.

Do one of the following:

Choose Load Actions from the Actions palette menu. Locate and select the action set file, and then click Load (Photoshop) or Open (Illustrator).
(Photoshop only) Select an action set from the bottom of the Actions palette menu.

Photoshop action set files have the extension .atn; Illustrator action set files have the extension .aia.

Restore actions to the default set

Choose Reset Actions from the Actions palette menu.
Click OK to replace the current actions in the Actions palette with the default set, or click Append to add the set of default actions to the current actions in the Actions palette.

Organize action sets

To help you organize your actions, you can create sets of actions and save the sets to disk. You can organize sets of actions for different types of work—such as print publishing and online publishing—and transfer sets to other computers.

To create a new set of actions, click the Create New Set button in the Actions palette or choose New Set from the palette menu. Then enter the name of the set, and click OK.

Note: If you plan to create a new action and group it in a new set, make sure you create the set first. Then, the new set will appear in the set popup menu when you create your new action.
To move an action to a different set, drag the action to that set. When the highlighted line appears in the desired position, release the mouse button.
To rename a set of actions, double-click the name of the set in the Actions palette or choose Set Options from the Actions palette menu. Then enter the new name of the set, and click OK.
To replace all actions in the Actions palette with a new set, choose Replace Actions from the Actions palette menu. Select an actions file, and click Load (Photoshop) or Open (Illustrator).

Important: The Replace Actions command replaces all sets of actions in the current document. Before using the command, make sure that you have already saved a copy of your current set of actions using the Save Actions command.