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Onlyfejmzzz
Onlyfejmzzz
Participant
February 15, 2026
Question

CREATING PROXY JOBS takes forever

  • February 15, 2026
  • 2 replies
  • 82 views

Although I’ve been using Adobe Premiere for years, I believe this is my first time creating an account on the community forum.
I’m reaching out regarding a terrible issue that Adobe hasn’t resolved, and it’s driving me insane day after day.

It has become almost impossible to edit files from my Sony A7III camera (4K 4:2:2 10-bit) unless I create proxies.
Alright, I’ve accepted the fact that for every bigger project I’ll need to generate proxies in order to edit smoothly.

However, “CREATING PROXY JOBS” takes at least 10× longer than actually creating the proxies themselves.
And this is driving me CRAZY!
This was NOT a problem before!

Some people on the forums say that Media Encoder scans all files in the folder and that it depends on the number of files — but I call that nonsense.
I tested this with a folder containing only 10 short clips and the result is exactly the same.

IS ADOBE PLANNING TO FIX THIS OR SHOULD I CANCEL MY SUBSCRIPTION???

    2 replies

    Warren Heaton
    Community Expert
    Warren HeatonCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    March 5, 2026

    Hi, ​@Onlyfejmzzz 

    Sorry to hear that you are seeing slower encoding times when creating proxies.  There’s frequently a wait time with the proxy workflow before we can get started assembling our story and the last thing we need is for it take longer than what we’re used to.

    Are you running macOS Tahoe 26.3 by any chance?  There are good number of reports with unexpected issues with that version of macOS from external storage issues to playback issues in Premiere that appear to require an update from Apple to resolve.

    As ​@Joëlle Bh asked, it would help to know more specific details.  Are you running Premiere 26.0.1, 25.6.4, or 24.6.8?

    If I was experiencing this on my Mac, I would do the following:

    • Make sure my Macintosh HD has adequate free space to swap memory to the Flash storage if needed (more important for Macs with 32GB of RAM or less).
    • Run Apple Diagnostics to check my Mac hardware. 
    • Run Disk Utility to check external storage media (if available, TechTool Pro) and repair if necessary.
    • Go through the reset options for Premiere making sure I’ve manually backed up Premiere preferences first so they can be restored.
    • Create and attach a limited number of proxies with a version of Premiere that’s one major release up or down from the release that I’m working in, carefully taking note of which version of Premiere is in use.

    You mentioned the AI integration.  If using AI-powered media intelligence in Premiere Pro or Media Encoder to analyze videos, that could slow things down (but should not have a significant impact).  You can make sure that media analysis is disabled in Premiere Pro and in Media Encoder and then do that later if wanted.

     

    Joëlle Bh
    Community Expert
    Joëlle BhCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 25, 2026

    Hi,
    I have just a few questions to better understand the issue:

    1. Which version of Premiere Pro and Media Encoder are you using?

    2. What type of drives are your source files and proxies stored on (internal SSD, external HDD, etc.)?

    3. How many clips and how much total data are in a typical project folder when you create proxies?

    4. Have you noticed if proxy creation time changes when using different folder locations or new projects?

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