Copy shortcuts to new computer

I have a new computer (Mac Mojave) and loaded SU Pro 2020 Classic (finally!) How can I get my shortcuts from 2018 (skipped 2019) into 2020? There’s no shortcuts.plist file in my 2020 application support folder. I did copy my shortcuts.plist from my old computer onto a flash drive and pasted it into Library/Application Support/SketchUp 2020/SketchUp, but it hadn’t changed the “canned” version of the shortcuts when I reopened Shortcuts in Preferences. What am I missing in this process?

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preferences their is an export option on the shortcut page and the files page. This will export a file that can be imported from the same page on your new installation of SketchUp.

When you say “export option on the shortcut page and the files page,” are you referring to the Shortcuts “page” in SU Preferences? I don’t see either an export or import function there. And under SU File/Export I only see options for 3D Model, 2D Model, Section Slice, Animation. I’m obviously looking in the wrong place.

Export shortcuts is not an option on Mac, you can copy the PrivatePreferences.json in the ~/library/SketchUp/SketchUp Version that you used/

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Didn’t realize that it wasn’t an option on the Mac.

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Thanks, Mike. I see I was trying to copy/paste a shortcuts.plist from 2017, not 2018. But I just copied PrivatePreferences.json from the v2018 folder on my old computer, pasted it into the v2020 folder, replied yes, replace the newer version with this older version. Reopened SU, but the shortcuts are still the ones that came with 2020. So I’m still missing something here. Thanks in advance for more help :slight_smile:

Understandable. Thanks anyway.

The shortcuts are in SharedPreferences.json, not PrivatePreferences.json. It might be better to carefully edit the file instead of replacing it with an old one.

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Thanks. Odd, though, that they would be in SharedPreferences rather than Private, given that one user may have entirely different shortcuts than another user. Of course, since I’m the only user, shared is the same as private. But maybe I’m missing something in the concept of shared/private since they are both in my own user library. Anyway, if I have more difficulties with this, I’ll ask more questions when I get back to the computer tomorrow. Thanks, guys, for your prompt replies.

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Of the record, you could have set the shortcurts manually by now…

The developers used terms “Shared” and “Private” referring to computers, not users. Each user will have their own .json files in their own library.

I believe the SharedPreferences.json is meant to be portable from one computer to another for this user, though it also contains OS-specific sections named “Windows Only”, “Mac Only”, etc. to contain preferences that won’t work or need to be handled differently on another OS. Keyboard shortcuts are among these because, for example, Windows does not have Mac’s Command key.

On the other hand, PrivatePreferences.json contains settings that can’t be assumed to work on any other computer, such as settings for extensions that might or might not be installed there.

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Off the record from me, too: Yes, redoing my shortcuts manually would have taken even less time than just asking the question. I just like to know how things are done, so I asked, and we’ve all spent lots of time asking/answering, when we could have spent it modeling, but then we’d never know the underpinnings :slight_smile: And rather than editing the SharedPreferences file, I will likely manually input my shortcuts anyway, given that some version ago (2016, 2017?) I’d previously gone to all the trouble to enter them into an Excel spreadsheet, sorted in three ways: by command, by shortcut key, and by menu.

Anyway, thanks for your reply!

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Aha! Thanks for the info, makes sense now.

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Plus you asked some questions that are valuable for others to get answers to, like me.

Anything to migrate over that is robust is always good to tell all.

:vulcan_salute: