Free tool · nothing is uploaded
LRTEMPLATE → XMP
Lightroom stopped importing .lrtemplate in 2018 and never provided a way back. This converts them — exactly, not approximately.
Drop an .lrtemplate preset here
Read and rewritten on your own device — nothing is uploaded. Several files? Use the batch converter.
What Adobe changed, and why it stranded your presets
Lightroom Classic 7.3 retired .lrtemplate in April 2018. The reason was reasonable: Adobe was unifying Lightroom Classic, the cloud-based Lightroom and Camera Raw around one preset format, and .xmp was already what Camera Raw and sidecar files used.
Presets you owned at the time were migrated automatically. What was not handled is everything else: a pack bought in 2016 and installed in 2020, a backup restored after a reinstall, a preset a friend sends you. Current Lightroom refuses those outright, and no setting brings the importer back.
Why this conversion is exact
Open an .lrtemplate in a text editor and it is a Lua table. Open an .xmp and it is XML. The syntax could hardly look more different — but the names inside are identical. Both call exposure Exposure2012, both call the point curve ToneCurvePV2012, both use the same eight HSL bands.
So there is nothing to estimate and no fitting involved. This converter reads one syntax and writes the other through the same mapping the site uses for real sidecars, which is also why it cannot quietly diverge from them.
Worth contrasting with CUBE to XMP, which genuinely is an approximation and says so, with a measured error figure. Different conversions deserve different claims.
The one thing that can still look wrong
A very old preset can reference a process version Lightroom no longer uses. Anything written for the 2003 or 2010 process describes controls that were reworked in 2012 — the values convert faithfully and then mean something slightly different when applied.
The symptom is a preset that converts cleanly and then looks off. That is not a conversion failure, and reconverting will not change it; the fix is to adjust the preset in Lightroom once and save it fresh.
Frequently asked questions
Why won't Lightroom import my .lrtemplate presets?
Because support for importing them was removed in Lightroom Classic 7.3, in April 2018. Presets you already had at the time were converted and moved automatically during that upgrade; anything you install afterwards is simply refused. There is no setting to turn it back on, which is why a converter is the only route.
Is this conversion exact, or an approximation?
Exact. Both formats store the same Camera Raw develop settings under the same names — Exposure2012 means the same thing in an .lrtemplate as it does in an .xmp — so this is a change of syntax rather than of meaning. That is genuinely different from converting a LUT to a preset, which is an approximation and is labelled as one on that tool.
Where do I put the .xmp once I have it?
On Windows, %APPDATA%\Adobe\CameraRaw\Settings. On macOS, ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/CameraRaw/Settings. Restart Lightroom and the preset appears under User Presets. In Lightroom CC you can import the file directly from the presets panel.
My presets vanished after a Lightroom update. Are they gone?
Almost certainly not. The 7.3 upgrade converted your .lrtemplate presets to .xmp and moved them to Camera Raw's Settings folder, which reads as them disappearing from where you expected. Look there, and check the User Presets group in the Develop panel, before converting anything.
What if the converted preset looks wrong?
Check the process version. A preset written for the 2003 or 2010 process describes controls that were reworked in 2012, so it converts faithfully and still behaves differently, because the meaning of the values changed rather than the values themselves. That is a preset older than the develop module it is being applied in, not a conversion failure.
Can I convert a whole folder at once?
Yes — the batch converter takes many files and returns them as a single archive. This page handles one at a time and shows you what it found, which is the better choice when you want to check a preset rather than move a library.
Is my preset uploaded?
No. The file is read with the browser's File API and rewritten on your own device. Nothing is transmitted, and the page keeps working with the network disconnected.
You have the preset. Do you know what it does?
A preset is sixty numbers, and most of them barely matter. Drop the photo and its sidecar into the Studio and the edit replays in six stages — light, curves, colour, masks, finish — so you can see which decision actually carried the look rather than guessing from the finished frame.