In Sketchup Preferences (Mac) I foolishly changed the File Locations path for ‘Materials’ and ‘Texture Images’ and did NOT get the result I wanted (go figure). I now desperately want to reset it to the default and forget about any ambitions of grandeur I might have had. Screenshot 2025-06-06 at 14.56.13.pdf (47.3 KB)
Essentially I would like to restore the new File Locations preferences to the original default hidden Library paths.
The ‘Change File Location Preference’ button does not give me the option to locate the hidden Library path I need to access.
One way to do this is to go into Finder and set it to show hidden folders. Then you should be able to get to the various folders under ~/Library/Application Support/SketchUp
You can copy and paste that from this reply. Note that the spaces are required.
In that folder you will find a file named PrivatePreferencs.json. Open the json file in a text editor and look for the section labeled “File Locations”. It contains all the file location settings. Edit the ones you want to fix. You should be able to see the base of the path in ones you didn’t change.
Thanks for that, I was starting to wonder about resorting to this as it turns out this is a tougher question than I thought at first.
I’m not sure about permanently setting that any more. It’s been years since I ever did that. There probably is a Unix command to do that from the console, but how nerdy is that? In the Finder itself, it’s easy to show hidden files (Command-Shift-Period toggles the visibility), or Hold down Option using the Go menu, or search in the search field as @slbaumgartner explains, but from SketchUp’s own Settings/Files dialog box, what you get is an Open File dialog, and none of these Finder techniques seem to work. This ought to be the obvious way for a user to go, or at least a reset button in the SketchUp Settings dialog.
Oh, here’s one way to get at that Library folder easily from anywhere: Once you’ve found that folder in the Finder, drag it to the sidebar of favorite places, then it will appear in Open File dialog boxes. Then you can get here:
