Preset Buttons

A preset button applies an After Effects animation preset (.ffx) to your selected layers.

Use one

1. Select one or more layers.
2. Click the button.

With nothing selected, the button does nothing by default. Each button can choose differently: under If nothing is selected in its editor, a preset button can instead make a solid, an empty shape layer, or an empty text layer and apply the preset to that — handy for presets that generate their own content.

Create one

1. Click + > Add button and set the type to Preset.
2. Pick the preset: browse the factory presets that ship with After Effects, your own user presets, or any .ffx file on disk.

The button points at your .ffx file rather than copying it, so updating the preset updates the button. To add several preset buttons at once, drag .ffx files onto a folder or the space below the list.

When you export a collection, the preset files it uses travel with it, so preset buttons work on someone else’s machine too.