Project Missing

Question

I was working on a project in After Effects. I went up to the option row if that makes sense? lol like I hovered over the "File" on top and I think I clicked space bar on accident. I leaned on it and it did it repeatedly and then it was gone all of a sudden. I closed out of AE and then reopened that project. All the files I had previously imported were still there on the left but the actual project that I had spent a wholeass 5 hours on was gone. Anyways, if anyone can help or give me some advice on how to fix this, that would be appreciated.

P.M.B · Accepted Answer

I think your composition is just off screen, or you moved the in/out points or something like that.

And I think your best option is to start from scratch.

If that doesn't sound good to you I suggest providing several screenshots with comment.

But really I think, because it sounds like you are really, really new to After Effects, the best thing you can do for

yourself is start from scratch.

Warren Heaton · Answer

It sounds like you accidentally deleted your Composition.

Some things to determine for this project as well as any future project that you work on in AE:

Where is the current project file (.aep) being saved?

The file will be whatever you named the project followed by .aep. If you didn't name the project, it will be named "Untitled Project.aep".

Where are the Auto-Save files being saved?

After Effects puts these auto-save project files into a folder named "Adobe After Effects Auto-Save." Unless you've changed the default settings, AE sets the Auto-Save Location to "Next to Project".

By default, AE saves an auto-save.aep every 20 minutes. So, if you were working in AE for five hours, there's a very good chance that you have several auto-save.aep files. You want to locate the most recent one that still has your Composition in it and continue from there.

So... look for the Adobe After Effects Auto-Save folder and open the newest .aep in there. Hopefully the newest one will be very close to where you left off, but you may need to open the one that was saved before the newest one and then the one before that and then the one before that.

For anything that you do in AE, create a Folder for that project on your hard drive and make sure anything and everything that has to do with that project goes into that folder. If you stick to that habit, you an come back to a project months or years later and everything will be there.

And...

In your current project that has your Source Footage but not your Composition: Go to the Search Text Field at the top of the Project tab and enter "Comp". AE will display only Compositions in the Project tab. With any luck, your Composition that you were working in is still in the Project tab.

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