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TeresaDemel
Community Manager
Community Manager
March 13, 2026
Premiere

Now in Beta: New Preference to Control Automatic Track Creation on the Timeline

  • March 13, 2026
  • 5 replies
  • 411 views

Editors have long expressed that automatic track creation can disrupt their editorial flow because it can upset intentional track setups, in particular when the source has more audio channels than the editing sequence. This new preference allows you to stay in control of your timeline and keep your tracks organized. 

Now you can go into Settings/Preferences → Timeline → Turn off “Add tracks automatically when editing source clips into the Timeline.” 

This update directly addresses the feature request here: 

Thanks to everyone who took the time to share feedback and use cases -- your input helped shape this improvement. Please try it out and let us know if you see any issues. 

Settings: Uncheck “Add tracks automatically when editing source clips into the Timeline”

Preference on

This screenshot shows what happens when the preference is on. When you drag a track with ten audio channels into a sequence with four audio channels, it automatically creates them. 

Preference On

 

Preference off (new)

This screenshot shows what happens when the preference is off. When you drag a track with ten audio channels into a sequence with four audio channels, it maintains the limit of four audio channels.

Preference off

 

    5 replies

    Participant
    July 8, 2026

    While this is a great improvement, it doesn’t solve the issue when you have a clip in your source monitor and want to insert / overlay edit audio channels from a source that has more tracks than your timeline (you still have to click the + button which automatically adds more unwanted tracks to your sequence). Adobe, look at how Avid and Final Cut have been doing this for decades and implement it. (they show all the audio source track indicator buttons on the left and you can then them to point at the fewer tracks on the right you have in your sequence...or if you don’t, it’ll then automatically add however many tracks you’ve highlighted in the source buttons on the left to your timeline)

    AndrewEdits4215
    Participant
    July 10, 2026

    Couldn’t agree more - this is a must in a professional editing application.

    DJP2014
    Inspiring
    July 8, 2026

    Afraid this still doesn’t work v well. I don’t want tracks added - but I do want to see what source channels are available (not a plus sign). 

    AndrewEdits4215
    Participant
    July 10, 2026

    They’ve solved half the problem - user ability to control whether tracks are automatically created during an insert/overwrite is still important - but arguably being able to choose from ALL available source tracks when patching is MORE important.

    Participant
    July 10, 2026

    100%. And it’s been a standard in NLE’s since the early 2000s...except for Premiere...

    AndrewEdits4215
    Participant
    July 7, 2026

    Works nicely in Beta, thanks for this - I would add a complimentary feature that should be added is to simply display all source tracks for the purpose of track patching, regardless of how many tracks are in your sequence - you should not need to create new tracks in your sequence just to patch from as many tracks on the source side. This is especially nice on smaller screens where users might not have the real estate to just ‘live with’ more tracks than are required, just so they can patch from, say, 8-track camera files or other sources.

    BrianLevin
    Known Participant
    March 13, 2026

    Yes but with a caveat! In addition to it being annoying that tracks are automatically, unwanted, created upon cutting into a timeline, it’s also ideal to see the tracks that are going to be added because we may desire to add channels A6, A8, A10 but not the others, despite the sequence only have tracks as high as A4. So seeing a ghosting of tracks that are going to be cut in would be a plus to add to this very helpful adjustment.

    Community Expert
    March 15, 2026

    Personally, I don’t care to see ghosted tracks or anything like that. While that is non-destructive that can still change the timeline, even if briefly, to show me the ghosting. But I do see how that can be useful. Honestly, at this point, it took so long to get this tiny update I’ll take the win and move on. 

    BrianLevin
    Known Participant
    March 15, 2026

    Alright I’ll concede you make a great point here, I would say then that this checkbox should be turned ON by default (behavior remains the same as it is today) otherwise we’ll be answering the same question 1000 times on forums “why won’t my other audio tracks go into my sequence?” I can just see the reddit posts rolling in already from confused editors who don’t read the release notes.

    Community Expert
    March 13, 2026

    Yaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!! 😀