After Effects 25.2 is now available to download!

[nishu_kush]

Welcome to After Effects 25.2

The Adobe After Effects 25.2 April release is now available for download, bringing a host of quality of life features and a comprehensive list of bug fixes to enhance your overall experience. This latest update includes significant improvements to streamline your workflow, ensuring better stability and performance.

New in 25.2

Here are the new features coming with version 25.2

Try the Latest Version

High Performance Preview Playback

Experience smoother and significantly longer preview durations without any limitation of RAM size allocated to After Effects.

HDR preview support

Preview and monitor your work in HDR for high dynamic range motion design and visual effects.

3D model animation controls in the

Properties panel

Easily modify the lighting and shadow effects on a 3D model layer and select embedded animations through the Properties panel.

Animated Environment Lights

Illuminate your Advanced 3D compositions by choosing a composition, video, or image layer as an Environment light source.

Helper commands for common 3D workflows

Use new commands to simplify common 3D workflows with single-click actions, such as linking a camera to a light, applying 2D effects to 3D objects, and visualizing the Environment Light's source.

Customize Transparency Grids

Use a new set of options in Grids & Guides preferences to change the size and colors of the transparency grids displayed behind the composition contents.

Customize panel background colors

Personalize the empty fallow area around your composition by selecting a background color from five grey brightness levels or choosing a custom color.

Maintain your workspace when opening projects

Keep your current workspace layout consistent when opening projects saved with different workspaces in After Effects.

New and improved Null creation commands

Effortlessly create Null controllers for positional properties such as the gradient points of Shapes, Puppet Pins, and effect points, simplifying your workflow and enhancing efficiency.

Fixed issues in 25.2

The After Effects product team has diligently worked on the 25.2 April release, which brings a comprehensive list of bug fixes to enhance the overall user experience.

Click here to check out the list of bugs that were fixed.

New in Beta

Check out what's new in After Effects Beta.

Try the Beta app

Change anchor point in a more efficient way 

Effortlessly adjust the anchor point on 2D layers with Quick Set Anchor using the Properties panel or a keyboard shortcut.

Smooth Zoom

Experience smooth and fluid magnification while scrolling, using pinch-to-zoom, or scrubbing with the Zoom tool in the Composition, Layer, and Footage panels.

Here's how you can install the latest version

Open the Creative Cloud desktop application and click the Updates tab on the top left. Find After Effects in the list and click Update.

I don't see the update in my Creative Cloud desktop application. What should I do?

Click Help > Check for Updates from the Creative Cloud desktop application to refresh it.

If you are experiencing any issues, please create a new thread explaining your problem so we can help.

[jackthegiantkiller]

Honestly impressed with the list of extensive fixes, I've been hanging back using 2024 due to various issues so I'm looking forward to testing!

[jackthegiantkiller]

Of course spoke too soon, there are a few issues, the disk cache is fairly erratic at times. Why does a section of my composition that is nothing but simply vector shape layers pre-comped absoiutely choked inexplicably, taking 10x longer than a section with 4k footage. Then later it will suddenly fill up the cache bar and be fine and I can scrub through it. 

Also something really frustrating keeps happening with the timeline search bar, where it just randomly keeps jumping to it when I'm trying to select a layer or change some text and then suddenly all my layers are gone because it has filtered everything out. I have to constantly go up and clear this search out.

[David.Arbor]

Hey @jackthegiantkiller ,

Can you say more about the disk cache? Are you talking about the new High Performance Preview Playback feature? It dramatically changes the way caching works; but without seeing a screen recording or really a breakdown of what the vectors are doing, it's hard to say. Are these 3D layers with or without extrusions? If they are a 3D layer (even without extrusions), are you using the Classic 3D or Advanced 3D renderer?

Regarding the Timeline search bar, the keyboard shortcut for that is Ctrl/Cmd+F, is it possible you're accidentally hitting that whe hitting another shortcut like Ctrl/Cmd+T to activate the text layer, "D" to duplicate a layer, "G" to group shapes, or "X" or "C" to cut or copy? When everything gets filtered out, what does the Timeline search bar show? That could give an indication of what happened right before the layers disappeared.

Thanks,
- David, After Effects Engineering Team

[arthurb13470043]

Hello, Adobe team. After updating my AE to the latest version 25.2, my Red Giant plugins corrupted (screenshot 1).

I reinstall all Red Giant package to the latest versions (Red Giant 2025.4.0), and now I get an error with TrapcodeOBJ.plugin (screenshot 2). In previous AE version (25.1) I didn't get any of these errors.

I'm on MacOS 15.3.1.

What should I do next to solve this error?

[David.Arbor]

Hi @arthurb13470043 , 

Please take a look at this thread to see how to handle the Red Giant issue.

Thanks,
- David, After Effects Engineering Team

[Paul5E1C]

Should've known better than to download this on release. It's a mess guys, as always. Playback just stops for no good reason, even when fully loaded into RAM. The software hangs when opening preference panels. It also hangs while attempting playback. Render times in ME take 2 x longer than they did on the same project yesterday... Great job...

[Dilnok]

Add hotkeys to align panel, please.

[Brave32556563zv1y]

Hi team,

I just updated to v25.2 and now my deep glow effect is missing. The plugin has been saved in the plugins folder. I tried removing and putting it back as suggested by yt tutorials but its still giving me the same message that my eefect is missing. Please help. Thanks!

[motionben]

Hi Brave,
Possibly check the version of DeepGlow you have installed. I just skimmed the bug fixes list and noticed this:

• Deep Glow versions prior to v1.6.3 have been blocked to prevent crashes in After Effects.

Worth checking to see if your plugin is newer than version 1.6.3. If it's an older version you may try installing an updated version of the plugin by re-downloading the latest version from the plugin developer. Good luck!

[David.Arbor]

Hi @Brave32556563zv1y ,

As @motionben mentioned, problematic versions of Deep Glow have been blocked. Plugin Everything sent out an email to aescripts customers on March 24th. Here's a link to the article explaining the situation: https://pluginevery.notion.site/Deep-Glow-v1-Compatibility-Notice-1baa71569d908028a989f06acf341c22?p... 

Thanks,
- David, After Effects Engineering Team

[jerryw48492253]

Yikes! This is Bad! When I open a project on my MacBook M3 Max running Sequoia with 96 Gigs of ram I get windows not refreshing, sending files to Media Encoder don't send, and opening windows like Project Settings cannot be canceled and stay on screen. If I am able to make a slight change to a project and I hit save, it gets to 99% saved and then freezes. It did save at one point and now I cannot roll back because it's not compatable.

I don't even know what to do at this point. I guess I'll try and rebuild my project in 2024. 

[David.Arbor]

Hi @jerryw48492253 ,

Sorry to hear you're having issues. Can you try to start AE in Safe Mode from the Preferences > General tab? This will start with a temporary set of fresh preferences. If this solves your problem, then trashing your preferences might fix the issues.

Thanks,
- David, After Effects Engineering Team

[jerryw48492253]

Hi David, 

Resetting prefs seems to work (partially). The windows now update correctly, I can save projects, and renders will launch into the 25.2 version of Media Encoder. Unfortunatly several plugins are now unregistered and I suppose I need to re-register them.

I do get an alert every time I launch the app about not finding an entry point for Camera Raw.plugin (see screenshot). I do not see this file inside the Adobe After Effects 2025. How do i fix this?

[David.Arbor]

Something definitely seems off. Can you try reinstalling 25.2? When you're asked if you want to delete or keep your prefs, delete them. You shouldn't have to re-register any third-party plug-ins just from trashing your prefs.

- David, After Effects Engineering Team

[jerryw48492253]

I have deleted and re-installed AE 25.2.2 three times. I still get the alert about not finding an entry point for Camera Raw.plugin every launch. It happens even when launching in safe mode. If I continue, I get windows not refreshing.

I CAN open AE 2024, but my material has been created in 2025 and cannot be imported.

What else can I try?

[David.Arbor]

Thanks for that extra info. We've heard a few reports of the Camera Raw error, but are having trouble tracking this down. Can you try to manually reinstall the plugin and report back whether it lets you launch AE? https://helpx.adobe.com/camera-raw/kb/camera-raw-plug-in-installer.html#fifteen_x

Thanks,
- David, After Effects Engineering Team

[jerryw48492253]

I reinstalled and no longer get the alert. I was disappointed at first because my old project was hanging again with frozen windows and only saving to 99% and requiring a force quit.

However, I created a brand new project and that seems to be working fine. So... fingers crossed...

[David.Arbor]

That's good to hear, thanks for the update. You can try creating a new project, importing the old one, and then saving. I suspect that will get you going again with your previous project.

Thanks,
- David, After Effects Engineering Team

[mihimaruGT]

Please don't spend time and energy on useless features, such as 3D. I don't think people who use AE will love this feature so much. In addition, I am very happy to add smooth zoom function in Beta

[rtdc]

Is anyone else experiencing an issue when pressing Cmd+I or double clicking in Projects panel, doesn't open Import dialog window with first try (it just blinks and disappears), after second try Import dialog window opens just fine.

[Tomislav26346979tocr]

CEP to UXP migration?

[Jessica30722370s4lw]

Mein After Effects startet nach dem Update nicht mehr. Stürzt immer beim Öffnen ab. Selbst Log-Dateien löschen hilft nicht.

[Pablo-D]

This is the worst  it does not  seem to run any faster actually the oposite is true. it's somehow now use all the capacity of the computer and still can't do a render preview.  never had so much troubles until now.  i cant even do a simple render. somehow you make it worse than it was. I need to get toa previus version because this is imposible to wirk with, how can i manage this?

[David.Arbor]

Hi @Pablo-D,
This is definitely not the experience we want you to have, nor is it the expected one. Can you try temporarily launching in Safe Mode to see if your preferences or a third-party tool might be causing problems? Also, if you have reproducible issues and project files, it really helps us to see full UI screen recordings or the problem projects so we can reproduce your issues on our end.