Saved search storage location

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Allen Watson

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Jan 26, 2024, 2:45:41 PM1/26/24
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I have a Mac user account that is so corrupt that it takes five or six minutes just to log in with only the Finder open. I have set up a second user account that works fine.

I want to retrieve my saved searches from the corrupt system. I know how to find them in the BBEdit/Setup menu, and I can double-click one at a time to see the content. But I have a lot of them. To switch back and forth for each one could take hours.

Is there a single location on disk where the saved searches are stored? If so, where, and is it possible to simply copy that file from the old system (I can access the files of the old system directly from the new system; it's the same disk.), and store it in the correct location of the new system? I have already copied my Scripts folder in this way; worked fine.

Patrick Woolsey

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Jan 27, 2024, 1:43:40 PM1/27/24
to bbe...@googlegroups.com
On 1/26/24 at 2:20 PM, watson...@gmail.com (Allen Watson) wrote:

[...]
>I want to retrieve my saved searches from the corrupt system. I
>know how to find them in the BBEdit/Setup menu, and I can
>double-click one at a time to see the content. But I have a lot
>of them. To switch back and forth for each one could take hours.
>
>Is there a single location on disk where the saved searches are
>stored? If so, where, and is it possible to simply copy that
>file from the old system


Per the "Setup" subsection of "BBEdit’s Supporting Folders" in
Chapter 2 of the included PDF manual (pages 38-39 of the current
edition), what you're looking for is:

~/Library/Application Support/BBEdit/Setup/Grep Patterns.xml

and this file is readily transferrable.

[PS: This would also be an entirely acceptable support question.
:-) ]


Regards

Patrick Woolsey
==
Bare Bones Software, Inc. <https://www.barebones.com/>

Allen Watson

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Jan 28, 2024, 7:51:28 PM1/28/24
to BBEdit Talk
Patrick, thank you. I discovered something about what the file was named by searching further in the forum, and a little searching on my old and new systems revealed where the file was kept on my system. I made a slight change on each system to be sure I had the right files, and then I copied the entire contents of the Setup folder from the old to the new system. I probably got some things I do not really need, but I definitely got all my Grep Expressions!
The location on the old system was where you said:
Watson:Users:AllenW:Library:Application Support:BBEdit:Setup

The new system's file was in an odd location, but BBEdit is accessing it there so I'm sticking with it:
Watson:Users:allen:Library:Containers:com.barebones.bbedit:Data:Library:Application Support:BBEdit:Setup

Patrick Woolsey

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Jan 29, 2024, 12:45:39 PM1/29/24
to bbe...@googlegroups.com
On 1/28/24 at 7:41 PM, watson...@gmail.com (Allen Watson) wrote:

>[...] I made a slight change on each system to be sure I had
>the right files, and then I copied the entire contents of the
>Setup folder from the old to the new system. I probably got
>some things I do not really need, but I definitely got all my
>Grep Expressions!

No harm done by carrying over the entire folder ; BBEdit just
won't use what it doesn't need. :-)

>The location on the old system was where you said:
>Watson:Users:AllenW:Library:Application Support:BBEdit:Setup

Yep, that is the default, while:

>The new system's file was *in an odd location, *but BBEdit is
>accessing it there so I'm sticking with it:
>Watson:Users:allen:Library:Containers:com.barebones.bbedit:Data:Library:Application
>Support:BBEdit:Setup

the above location (within BBEdit's sandbox folder) is a valid alternative.


Regards,
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