Participant

Question

Error message: Premiere Pro requires access to the following folders: Documents, Desktop, Downloads

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
January 31, 2021
6 replies
14476 views

Trying to open Premier Pro, I get the above error message. My answer is "No. Absolutely not."
Why on earth would I give any app whatsoever access to my entire documents folder, desktop and downloads? But it won't open otherwise, so I need a workaround. Fast.

2019 MBP running macOS 11.1.

I'm really hoping this is a mistake.

Error or problem

acting excellent

Participant

dont give access

S

Say Norton

Participant

I’ve been reading the replies and don’t see a way to work around it. Is there any way to set preferences to another folder for Premier Pro? I don’t recall granting any other software in the suite access to my documents folder…. which has virtually EVERYTHING in it.. or do I need to create a different folder for everything that was in my documents folder??? It freaks me out if they could abuse that access or get hacked, what a disaster that could create for me.

R

R.C.5FB7

Participant

No mistake. Their forceful intrusion into my privacy and their ignorance of my wishes to decide for myself where programmes should store their data made me stop using Premier. Their are powerful alternatives., that allow me to stay in control of programmes. Photoshop and Lightroom still work if I refuse access to the Documents folder - if that should ever change, I would stop using Adobe at all. My consequence: I am downsizing my Adobe subscription from Creative Suit to single subscription of Photoshop.

R

Risto5E78

Participant

Thank you Mikalj for starting this thread / discussion. I faced the same issue and concern and makes me sad to read the answers of community professionals. Respectful behavior is a part of the customer centric business. If a company, here Adobe, allow their community professionals act this way, I see this is as part of the company policy. Just few exaples to explain my point

1. Most of them runnning PrPro, which passed the security process. You ever been through that? "They know better, you seem to a tenderfoot"/ Good example of "bandwagon fallacy".
2. Click Deny. If the program fails to open/run, you will need to either allow access to those directories or uninstall the application. "We do not need you and we do not want to help you to succeed".
3. I'm not going to explain Mac OS security settings here but here's the thing: you can click Deny. "I do not have time explain this for stupids, so please stop wasting my time and leave".
4. My personal opinion is that you shouldn't demand a company operate in a manner only you deem acceptable. "Your concern is stupid and we only love customers who accept our terms".
5. The issue here is you have a fundamental misunderstanding about how MacOS permissions work. "We up here assume that if you don't understand MacOS permissions, you should not participate this discussion"
6. Very true, since Windows grants Premiere permission to those directories by default. But hey, what you don't know can't hurt you, right? "Oh you stupid, you know nothing about the issue and here we are; you chose the wrong OS as well"

However, I wish you all productive time with Adobe products.

R Neil Haugen

Legend

This is a user to user forum ... with a ton of users that work in the Mac OS daily, without issue.

As noted, the Mac OS used to give those permissions automatically, you simply never saw them. They are pretty simple and straight-forward, and used the same as quite a number of other apps I've got.

Resolve, btw, puts a lot of stuff in various places around my computer too.

Because any such app needs to have places for those things. Each app's developers use a slightly different reasoning and set of protocols for where they store & access data needed to operate. But they all put stuff around the computer as they need.

And you can of course say 'no', and see if the app runs ok. It's your choice of course.

But being unhappy that anyone disagrees with your position is odd for a place where wide-ranging discussions are hopefully the norm. I've been to NAB a bunch of times, the aisleway discusssions of editors are always fascinating.

Eight editors talking about doing X will have eight different ways of doing it. And a couple of them will be very vocal about disliking the process used by someone else.

Well ... as far as I can tell, everyone's mileage always varies.

Neil

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

L

lorenm84878416

Inspiring

Neil-

I've read your spportive posts for years now. I don't question your support, or any other Community specialist, of users. But Adobe needs to be told- and you're getting that in various forms-- that the user comes first.

The proper way, in my view, for Adobe to overcome the feeling of a "We need access to these folders or go to hell" approach is to actually ask the user:

"Where would you like Adobe to store the files necessary to run the program? These are our folder choices- but as long as you allow us to store support files to make the program function correctly, you are free to specify any reliable area of your computer which gives the program instance access."

Now, is that so hard, folks??

I for one will drink the kool-aid. I have work to do. But I welcome an engineering attitude change allowing more control and choice.

Best, as always,

Loren

-Lor -

illumn8d

Participating Frequently

The workaround is to stop using MacOS... 😂

Jeff Bugbee

Community Expert

Very true, since Windows grants Premiere permission to those directories by default. But hey, what you don't know can't hurt you, right?

R Neil Haugen

Legend

Premiere Pro stores it's own folders of information in those places. For crying out loud, it doesn't read anything else. But your user profile with all your custom workspaces, your keyboard shortcuts file, your list of recent projects, all that stuff is what's stored in there. Your "local" Creative Cloud files ... all sorts of things Premiere needs to operate.

So ... you have to allow Premiere Pro to store it's files there. As you may be aware, many other apps do also.

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

Corey Ward

Participant

Hogwash. Adobe has for years assumed that they could be a poor steward of our machines and it's coming to light now that Apple doesn't give them carte blanche. Their Privacy Policy is broad, and they are otherwise not transparent about the way they collect and use information about the files in these folders. For starters, they routinely force their way into the sidebar of Finder, litter folders throughout my files, and then send a ton of that information back to themselves and third-parties (set up Little Snitch and watch for yourself).

If Premiere needs access to write to these folders they should wait until the app boots, convey that need, and to the extent possible make it optional. I do not want Premiere putting anything on my Desktop or in my Downloads folder. I also don't want to use my Documents folder because it's synced to iCloud and I have a limited amount of storage there. So much like the OP, this is a complete dealbreaker for me. Good riddance.

R Neil Haugen

Legend

That data is the information on performance of the app. It's all anonymized and just stored as metrics of program performance, they have no way of finding out who what metrics came in from. Why? Because Adobe has this information coming from many companies in the business that have incredibly strict confidentiality rules. Think the major studios for Hollywood movies and of course broadcast network stuff.

They have to prove to all their security people that nothing concerning any information on user or media is passed through. The entire system is constantly checked for "leaks" and inappropriate behavior.

If any studio or network security people found an issue, it would be a noisy discovery. Guaranteed.

So that's how their system is set up. What it does is provide them with data to monitor how many users are having crashes and what performance they're getting.

Neil

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded