Maya preferences compatibility between Maya versions

[jani.ylinen]

When I update my Maya to new version I always backup my preferences folder in case that something goes wrong and my settings gets corrupted which used to be quite normal case with Maya time to time... but not even once on maya 2018!

My question is that should preferences folder be compatible towards upcoming versions of Maya? At least this has been the case. I have been using Maya since 2014 but today i my work is relying more and more on Maya. I kind of believe that this is the case with normal updates but how about major ones for example 2018 -- 2019?

in Maya 2018.1 --> 2018.4 everything is working but how this is thought to be in future? I have quite much custom keyboard commands in hotkey editor and lots of important scripts on custon shelves.

Sometimes I am tempted to do settings / scripts cleanup to get rid of stuff that i am not anymore using but it might take a day at least so I have been lazy and haven't just cared since everything is working properly anyway.

Also is there any "smart" way to keep preferences / settings / scripts synced on same maya versions between different OS? I am using windows version at office and at home but on travel I am using macbookpro 2013 (the last good macbook pro with nvidia gpu)

Does someone have exprience about how reliable is to use dropbox as maya prefernces folder so you can sync preferences between two computers

[mspeer · Accepted solution]

Hi!

I recommend to create new preferences every time and then copy scripts or Hotkeys to your new preferences.

It's the most secure way to keep old setting and to be able to see and use new stuff.

[jani.ylinen]

How about shelves etc? it can be tedious to create few fully blown shelves again with proper icons and scripts. 

Basicly what you mean is that it is recommended to recreate maya preferences when switching to new maya version?

[mspeer]

Hi!

There is no official recommendation to create new preferences for a new release/update.

It's just the most secure option and i personally recommend this.

Yes, it takes some minutes to get old settings back, but missing a new feature would be far more annoying, even if the chance for this to happen is very small.