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Luxocrates
Participating Frequently
May 21, 2025
Answered

Have to restart Premiere to drag-and-drop a second video clip into a sequence from Finder

  • May 21, 2025
  • 1 reply
  • 237 views

I'm seeing a reproducible failure when doing the following using Premiere Pro 25.2.3 Build 4, on macOS 15.5 (24F74)).

 

1. Create a sequence (default settings, which for me is UHD (4K) 2160p 59.94 fps)

2. Using the Mac Finder, drag-and-drop a video file into that sequence (in my case, an .mp4, with video codec type MP4/MOV H.264 10 bit 4:2:2)

3. Try drag-and-drop (using Finder still) a second video file to that sequence; or indeed, any sequence

 

What's happening is that it won't let me lay the second file onto a video track (my mouse cursor becomes a 🚫). It'll let me drag it into an audio track, but not a video track. But these are most definitely video files.

 

If I restart Premiere, I can succeed in dragging that second file into a sequence's video track. But if I want to then drag in a third, I need to quit and restart Premiere, or the same thing happens again.

 

Relaunching the Finder on the Mac side doesn't make a difference. Only restarting Premiere unblocks me.

    Correct answer Ann Bens

    Not a bug.

    The most common user error is not source patching the track.
    Solved by first opening clip in Source Monitor. Then drag/insert into timeline.

    Adobe Premiere Pro Help | Source patching and track targeting

    1 reply

    Ann Bens
    Community Expert
    Ann BensCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
    Community Expert
    May 21, 2025

    Not a bug.

    The most common user error is not source patching the track.
    Solved by first opening clip in Source Monitor. Then drag/insert into timeline.

    Adobe Premiere Pro Help | Source patching and track targeting

      L
      LuxocratesAuthor
      Participating Frequently
      May 21, 2025

      You are correct that this resolves my issue. Thank you! And I appreciate the quick response.

       

      I will say there's some very counterintuitive UX at play here.  Experimenting with it, it would seem that...

       

      1. The column doesn't appear until after your first drag-and-drop. You get one freebie per application launch where your drop target can be any track.

      2. But once it does appear, the setting of which track it sets as a target isn't part of ephemeral application state, but something more persistent (file state? persistent application state?). I'm guessing that, once upon a time, I'd explicitly set an audio track as my track target this way, so that's what I'm forced into using after my one freebie drop. Or maybe sequences default to audio? The symptoms are persistent as new sequences are created.

       

      If that's the intended behavior, I... respectfully disagree with the designers' UX choices here. Perhaps instead of the 'computer says no' mouse cursor, it could let me at least _try_ to drop it there, and then bring up a dialog asking if I want to change the track targeting? That'd be far more helpful.

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