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Banti Kumar
Participating Frequently
Dec 30, 2020 4:27 AM UTC
Question

Premiere Pro project files have disappeared from everywhere!

Premiere Pro project files have disappeared from everywhere! not available in auto-save. please tell me how to foud and recover that.

50 replies

Participant
Jul 18, 2025 8:37 PM UTC

I cut a trailer, i was going to conform it to vertical, and suddenly I noticed some of the footage was replaced with another file that is not sufficient for the trailer, and it is not the file that was there before.

Insanity.

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R Neil Haugen
Legend
Jul 18, 2025 8:42 PM UTC

That would be infuriating.

 

What did it replace the clip with?

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Everyone's mileage always varies ...
Inspiring
Jan 11, 2024 5:21 PM UTC

Yes I auto save every chance I get. No it's not your computer that did it premiere or creative cloud somehow someway has done this to me before and deleted everything. Luckily I had an old install location for my auto saves that premiere was not connected to that was still there. The new location was blasted into the nether realm. Yes this does happen and the only way to solve it for sure is to backup your saves and data somewhere else by mirroring it. Of course not all of us have the capacity to do so but thats the only solution when a program can just delete everything on a whim.

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Legend
Jan 11, 2024 5:38 PM UTC

why do some people not have the capacity to backup to the cloud?  There are free versions of dropbox and google drive with limited storage, but with more than sufficient room to back up project files.   And you must have an internet connection to authorize your creative cloud subscription...    

 

And backing up to an external drive that is not kept connected to your system is another option.  I

 

As I said earlier in this thread, it's very difficult to troubleshoot from a distance and if the problem is not reproduceable, there's really almost no way to figure out what's going on...    My gut tells me there's some common denominator on systems this has happened on...  just don't have a clue...

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Inspiring
Jan 11, 2024 6:15 PM UTC

Time, Money, taking extra steps in a program that you don't have to with other programs. The common denominator in the systems that this has happened to seems to be they all used premiere. No other program ever deletes any of its files on my computer and I can say that everyone may say the same thing. But in Adobe's community they say "it's the useres fault" like Apple. When you're phone explodes its because you were turning it on wrong..... Not everyone uses your workflow, and not everyone has the time to take extra steps because of the failure of a program to do what we paid for....

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Kevin J. Monahan Jr.
Legend
Dec 13, 2023 8:22 PM UTC

Is this external storage a NAS or SAN, @Banti Kumar?

 

Let us know!
Kevin

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Kevin Monahan - Sr. Community and Engagement Strategist – Adobe Pro Video and Audio
Participant
Nov 15, 2023 3:04 PM UTC

This has just happened to me.  Every file, from years back has vanished.  I did the search for the file type and they are not there.  This is extremely frustrating.  I most definitely saved a backup of everything, and now they do not exist.  The rendered videos are there but not the video editing file. The program just did an update and I'm wondering if that has something to do with it.

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Legend
Nov 15, 2023 3:26 PM UTC

Never easy to troubleshoot premiere problems from a distance so please tell us your system specs: OS version, Premiere version, amount of RAM, Hardware specs including graphics card and if you have any 3rd party plugins installed for Premiere...

 

ave you checked your autosave folder?   Where is that located?   Have you read this thread closely and tried all the suggestions.  

 

As I said earlier in this thread, I keep my premiere projects on a folder stored on an external ssd which is permanently connected to my macstudio...  This folder is automatically mirrored on dropbox AND since I have a dropbox subscription, I can retreive multiple versions of the file altered within the last month.  My autosave folder is stored on my external media drive.    This seems like a rock-solid workflow to me...  

 

 

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Participant
Nov 3, 2023 11:11 PM UTC

I figured out how to fix this(to an extent). This just happened to me right now and I already was past the deadline for a paid gig and lost all my stuff. Funny enough found a way quickly with some YT vids and a little bit of that intuition. 

Download and use Recuva - its data recovery tool is completely free
Then scan if it shows your files you are lucky but if not try the steps below,
 - Select the specific folder where you lost the files
 - Go to options 

 - Turn on these

 

This is what worked for me - Leave a reply if it worked 🙂 

 

[Profanity removed by moderator]

 

 

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Participant
Mar 14, 2023 7:38 PM UTC

Oddly enough, this recently happened to me. A slew of recent Premiere Pro Project files simply vanished — nothing in autosave. Nothing in any trash bins. Nothing within the last few months shows up in a search. It is as if the project files never even existed. 

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Banti Kumar
Participating Frequently
Mar 23, 2023 4:05 PM UTC
Terrible experience
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Banti Kumar
Participating Frequently
Jan 7, 2021 3:27 AM UTC

No solution for this topic.

 
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Legend
Jan 7, 2021 5:40 AM UTC

Try using a file recovery software, see if you can find a trace of your project file.

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Participant
Jul 14, 2022 10:00 PM UTC

Is there one you would reccommend?

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R Neil Haugen
Legend
Jan 1, 2021 6:36 PM UTC

Check the Project settings dialog for where it saved the project, and where the auto-saves go.

 

And of course, when searching via file managers, you're searching for *.prproj files.

 

Neil

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Everyone's mileage always varies ...
Banti Kumar
Participating Frequently
Jan 4, 2021 12:20 PM UTC

Also do that..but this is not a solution

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Peru Bob
Community Expert
Community Expert
Jan 1, 2021 5:54 PM UTC

Look in the internal and external drives' Recycle Bin.

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Banti Kumar
Participating Frequently
Jan 4, 2021 12:20 PM UTC

Already Checked

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Peru Bob
Community Expert
Community Expert
Dec 31, 2020 3:45 PM UTC

Did you save them to an external drive that is not now connected?

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Banti Kumar
Participating Frequently
Jan 1, 2021 5:59 AM UTC

yes, I save that project in an external drive but that project is not there.

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