transferrring keyword files from a hard drive

[pcaya]

Hi,

I am running Mac OSX 10.9.5 and Photo Mechanic 5.0. I recently had a hard drive failure and had to re-build my new hard drive from the OS up - one program at a time - meaning I also had to also do a fresh install of Photo Mechanic. I was hoping there is some way to retrieve my keywords file from the old hard drive (I have almost all of my files from a data recovery service). Is there a file on the old hard drive that I should look for - that I could import into my new computer/version of PM? If so, what is it called and where might I find it?

I saw a similar post on this forum but the user in that case had a running copy of PM on the old computer. I do not but I have most all of the files. Is there a system file or a metadata file that PM saves somewhere that I can retrieve and install on my new hard drive so I do not have to build my keyword library from scratch?

Thanks,
P. Caya

[Kirk Baker]

I am running Mac OSX 10.9.5 and Photo Mechanic 5.0. I recently had a hard drive failure and had to re-build my new hard drive from the OS up - one program at a time - meaning I also had to also do a fresh install of Photo Mechanic. I was hoping there is some way to retrieve my keywords file from the old hard drive (I have almost all of my files from a data recovery service). Is there a file on the old hard drive that I should look for - that I could import into my new computer/version of PM? If so, what is it called and where might I find it?

I saw a similar post on this forum but the user in that case had a running copy of PM on the old computer. I do not but I have most all of the files. Is there a system file or a metadata file that PM saves somewhere that I can retrieve and install on my new hard drive so I do not have to build my keyword library from scratch?

PM stores its settings in a folder called "com.camerabits.PhotoMechanic" and it is in your user account's Library/Preferences folder.  So if the hard drive is still accessible, the path is going to be something like this:

OldHardDrive/Users/<YourUsername>/Library/Preferences/com.camerabits.PhotoMechanic/

You can copy that folder to the same place on your new computer (in your user account) but I suggest renaming your current com.camerabits.PhotoMechanic folder before you copy the old one into your Preferences folder.  That way if PM won't startup, you can go back and rename the current folder and get your default settings back.  At that point you could pick and choose what parts of the folder contents to transfer over.

HTH,

-Kirk