Why do Timelines Close and Reorder when Switching Workspaces?

Adobe, if you are reading, how about a simple preference: "Persist open sequences across workspaces?" I'll put that request in the proper place as this user forum is just that, but I've mostly switched to Resolve for this and many other reasons. That was an easier choice than waiting years for legitimate problems to be addressed while at the same time experiencing more pain and frustration when other things were changed unnecesarily (cough, clip label colors, cough). Resolve has it's frustrating quirks also but this is not one of them. Now that it supports ProRes Raw it will become my full go to NLE. I have one major project that is too big to rebuild outside of Premiere but once it's fully done, Premiere is done for me as well.

When you save a Workspace, it also saves the number of timeline panels that are displayed. All of the default workspaces that come with Premiere are designed to display one timeline panel.

If you don't want your Workspace to change the number of displayed timelines, the first thing you should do is open the maximum number of sequences you might need and then choose Window > Workspaces > Save Changes to this Workspace. (Just a tip: don’t overdo it—opening 100 sequences and saving your Workspace will slow down switching workspaces.)

If you create a workspace with 20 timelines and have 20 timelines open, it won’t close any timelines. If you have less than 20 timelines open, it won’t add any extra timelines.

However, workspaces in Premiere are always being updated, even if they're not being saved. So, if you created a workspace with 20 timelines but then closed one, the next time you switch to that workspace, it will only display 19 timelines.

The good news is that switching workspaces doesn't technically "close" that timeline - it just doesn't display it. If you go to Window > Workspaces > Reset to Saved Layout (shortcut Option/Alt + Shift + 0), it will ensure there are enough timeline panels to display all your open sequences.

TLDR:

• Switch to a workspace
• Open 10-30 sequences in the Timeline
• Go to Window > Workspaces > Save Changes to this Workspace
• If you close a timeline, this will reduce the number of timelines the Workspace will display. However, Window > Workspaces > Reset to Saved Layout (shortcut Option/Alt + Shift + 0) will restore all open sequences.

Hi John, I've been experiencing the exact same issue I believe. I tried Ali_Jaber's solution which did not fix it for me. Have you found a solution or workaround?

Yes, I struggle with that problem for years. Try that: save a workspace with specific sequences opened, change the workspace, and then reload the saved one: Premiere will restore those perfectly. So, It looks like Premiere Pro is saving opened sequences with saved workspace, and whenever you load the workspace in another project it searches for the specified sequences in it, and if it didn't found those it will replace them with sequences from the project panel, and then everything will look messy.