Can't import Studio presets from Time Machine backup (includes Serif store public versions)

[JGD]

Hi guys! I've recently had a big issue with my Mac Studio: when updating it from macOS 13.2.1 to 13.3 my user account, which was stored on an external drive, borked itself, and then I couldn't add e-mail accounts or get iCloud to work when recreating it. I had to change tack and install macOS on the external drive and boot from it instead, and am now in the process of manually restoring all my apps and their settings.

Enter the Affinity suite… Importing my MAS-bought v1's ~/Library/Containers folders worked flawlessly, but I can't say the same for all my ~/Library/Application Support folders for both v2 public release versions (bought from Serif's store) and the beta versions.

I've tried everything, and checked both this thread and the reference post it links to. I also noticed that I still had a naming discrepancy on Affinity Designer 2 Beta's Studio preset naming conventions (the files on my Time Machine backup still followed the “com.seriflabs.affinitydesigner2.Studio.Preset.[persona].[preset name].preset” convention, instead of the seemingly current “com.seriflabs.Studio.Preset.[persona].[preset name].preset” one, but Photo and Publisher don't exhibit this behaviour), but regardless of what I did (such as recreating new Studio presets with the same names and replacing them with my original, backed-up files, and in Affinity Designer Beta 2's case, by also renaming them to follow said current convention), NOTHING worked.

I mean, are you guys using some hidden, undocumented internal database that I'm missing? What use is exposing these files to the end user, or document their locations here in the forum, if Affinity apps don't recognize them nor have a way of manually import them anyway? I honestly don't feel like recreating ELEVEN persona presets by hand across all three apps all over again (and I'm lucky to have kept my V1 presets, otherwise that wouldn't even be an option and I'd have to do it by memory and take twice as long).

And yes, I'm sure using the Migration Assistant app would automagically copy some hidden files with some special sauce that I'm missing, but considering what happened to my entire setup, which makes me want to avoid said app like the plague and start anew (incidentally, a recommended course of action from time to time, to lose old cruft from vintage macOS versions tailored to entirely different ISAs and installed on machines with different peripherals and apps altogether), and the fact that Affinity apps are supposed to be professional products for professional settings (where backup policies may not always conform to whatever Apple deems to be the standard), I would expect a greater degree of resilience, transparency and portability when it comes to user setting files.

On the other hand, I can easily and successfully import Workspace files in the extremely vintage and otherwise finicky Adobe CC apps just by restoring them to their proper places in the Finder. Just saying…

[Gabe]

The only official way to support content migration is using the in-app methods. We don't encourage, document or support manually moving files around. This thread documents what files get deleted, and not what you need to move around 

 

[walt.farrell]

For V2, this new FAQ provides some additional info beyond the V1 FAQ: