What Is an .lrtemplate File? The Old Lightroom Preset Format
An .lrtemplate file is a Lightroom develop preset in the format Adobe used until April 2018. If you bought a preset pack before then — or are opening an old backup — this is what you have.
Current versions of Lightroom Classic will not import one, which is why this format is usually met as a problem rather than as a curiosity. The good news is that nothing is lost: the file is readable text and the conversion path is reliable.
What happened in 2018
Lightroom Classic 7.3 retired .lrtemplate in favour of .xmp. The change was not arbitrary. Adobe was unifying Lightroom Classic, the cloud-based Lightroom and Camera Raw around one preset format, and .xmp was already the format Camera Raw and the sidecar files used.
On upgrading, Lightroom migrated existing presets automatically, converting them and moving them into a new location. This is why a lot of people encountered the change as presets appearing to vanish — they were converted and relocated, not deleted.
The one-way part is import. Lightroom will still use presets it migrated for you, but it will not accept a fresh .lrtemplate dropped into the folder today.
What is inside the file
An .lrtemplate is a Lua table written as text — Lightroom's own scripting language, saved to disk. Open one in a text editor and it is entirely readable: a block of key-value pairs naming each develop setting and its value, an internal identifier, and the preset's display name.
The settings themselves have the same names as the ones in .xmp presets, because both describe the same develop module. Exposure2012, Contrast2012, the tone-curve points, the HSL adjustments — all present, all recognisable.
That readability is why conversion is dependable rather than approximate. The two formats express the same values in different syntax; there is no interpretation involved.
Getting old presets working again
If you still have a Lightroom Classic installation that predates 7.3, the simplest route is to install the presets there and let the upgrade migrate them. That is rarely available in practice.
The general route is to convert the file to .xmp and place it in Lightroom's current settings folder. Several free converters exist, and because the mapping between the formats is direct rather than lossy, the results are reliable.
It is also worth checking with whoever sold the pack. Most preset vendors reissued their catalogues in .xmp after 2018 and will supply the updated files to existing customers.
- ·Windows — %APPDATA%\Adobe\CameraRaw\Settings
- ·macOS — ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/CameraRaw/Settings
What does not carry across
Very old presets can reference process versions Lightroom no longer uses. A preset written for the 2003 or 2010 process version describes controls that were reworked in 2012, and converting the file faithfully still leaves you applying values whose meaning has changed.
The symptom is a preset that converts cleanly and then looks wrong. That is not a conversion failure — it is a preset genuinely older than the develop module it is being applied in, and the fix is to adjust it rather than to reconvert.
Frequently asked questions
Why won't Lightroom import my .lrtemplate files?
Because support for importing them was removed in Lightroom Classic 7.3, in April 2018. Presets you already had at the time of upgrading were migrated automatically; new .lrtemplate files are simply not accepted. Converting to .xmp is the route.
How do I convert .lrtemplate to .xmp?
Use a converter, then place the resulting .xmp in Camera Raw's Settings folder and restart Lightroom. The mapping is direct — both formats store the same develop settings under the same names — so the conversion is faithful rather than approximate.
My presets disappeared after a Lightroom update. Are they gone?
Almost certainly not. The 7.3 upgrade converted .lrtemplate presets to .xmp and moved them to a new folder, which reads as them vanishing from where you expected. Look in Camera Raw's Settings directory, and check the User Presets group in the Develop panel.
Can I open an .lrtemplate to see what it does?
Yes — it is plain text. Any editor will show you the develop settings by name and value. It is a genuinely useful way to understand what a preset you bought is actually doing, which is harder with a LUT.
Do .lrtemplate presets work in Lightroom mobile or the cloud version?
No. Those only take .xmp presets, and always have — the format change in 2018 was partly to make presets work consistently across all three applications.
Once your preset is an .xmp, RawCut can bake it into a .cube LUT for Resolve, Premiere or Final Cut — free, and in your browser.
Turn a preset into a LUT