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Known Participant
November 2, 2023
Question

Can't resize switches column

  • November 2, 2023
  • 12 replies
  • 1219 views

Problem:

I'm unable to resize the switches column. To be more accurate, I'm able to resize it, but the minimum width lets a lot of space on the right side.

The problem occures only with this one. The other columns don't have any empty space (marked red in the image)

 

 

What I tried:

Hovering over the intersection between two timeline columns at the top of the timeline, the mouse cursor changes to a double-ended arrow, I drag to the left until the column width doesn't change any further.

Resetting the preferences and uninstalling (with deletion of the preferences)/reinstalling of After Effects.

 

Expected result:

Being able to reduce the size of the column to the first switch on the right side, so that there is not this much free space.

 

I don't want to get rid of the switches entirely, just of the free space next to them.

 

12 replies

Inspiring
September 12, 2024

I have the same super frustrating Issue here on my macbook- very annoying when you have so little screen space and cant even fully use it because of this bug.

Participant
February 13, 2025

I found the solution! It depends on the language you use. In my case it was german and after changing the language to US English i finally were able to change the size to the REAL minimum.

koljae4216091
Participating Frequently
December 13, 2023

Maximizing the timeline panel didn't help for me...

Known Participant
December 12, 2023

I also had this problem on a Mac I had at work but only occasionally and I think I was able to fix it there temporarly by maximizing the timeline panel (I'm not sure about that though and can't verify because I don't work there anymore and do not own a Mac myself). But yes, for me this also occoured and occours on different devices and OSs (maybe I'm one of the very lucky ones or other people don't notice or don't care this much about this problem)

 

koljae4216091
Participating Frequently
December 11, 2023

I did have and still do have the same problem - on all of my current and recent Macs (iMac 2012, Mac Pro 2013, Mac Studio 2021) in all After Effects versions. Haven't found a solution yet.

Known Participant
November 3, 2023

Unfortunately not. Neither on my PC with multiple screens of different resolution nor on my laptop where I tried out different resolutions and scalings. The space remains.

 

thepixelsmith
Community Expert
Community Expert
November 3, 2023

This is so strange. 

What happens if yo change your screen resolution? Does it affect the amount of space there?

Known Participant
November 3, 2023

Update:

I tried turning off syncing of the settings before reinstalling now as I was suspicious that maybe old currupted settings are synced after reinstalling. No success.

 

Known Participant
November 3, 2023

Resetting workspaces or switching between them is somethin I actually haven't tried yet (although I assume deinstalling AE completely would get rid of it). But no luck. The problem occours in every (default) workspace.

 

Here's a GIF to illustrate what I described

 

Thanks for your suggestion anyway 🙂

I'll dig further and let you know when I find anything

 

thepixelsmith
Community Expert
Community Expert
November 2, 2023

Not sure then, the only way I could replicate the appearance you have was with that line.

You could try resetting the workspace Window>Workspaces> Reset "" to Saved layout but I don't think that command can reset the column widths and when I revealed the other columns that could be there they each had a header to tell you what was visible.

 

Sorry

Known Participant
November 2, 2023

Thanks for trying to help but as stated in my first post, I already tried this but "the column width doesn't change any further". This is the minimal space I get. I know about this lines existance and can see it clearly but no matter how hard or how far I drag the double arrow to the left... unfortunately noting changes. I can make it wider though. So it moves (also stated in my post) but the minimal width is wrong.

Any other ideas? What I don't understand is that resetting the settings doesn't change this strage behaviour. Maybe some files that I need to delete manually?