Can't 'Save' or 'Save As' in After Effects

[logan_mcnay]

Hello, I can't 'Save' or 'Save As' in After Effects.

I've tried ctrl+s, ctrl+shift+s, and then nothing happens. In the Adobe After Effects Auto-Save, it isn't saving new versions of the file. When I save, it runs the function but doesn't actually do anything & won't create a new version of the file. The auto-saves are a day old now, since I haven't X'd out of the project, hence they're not updating there either.

I've tried purging all memory & disk cache & it didn't work. 

I don't want to X out of the project to uninstall AE & reinstall because I'll lose a day of work.

I've tried "save as copy" and it didn't do anything either.

Thanks,

[jenkmeister]

What version of After Effects are you on? 

[logan_mcnay]

Hello, I'm on version 24.1.0 (Build 78)

[jenkmeister]

Thanks. There was an issue a year or so ago with a missing Save option but if you're on 24.1, then that's not the issue. A couple of ideas are below but as AE is not giving you any error messages, I'm not confident there is a path out of this that saves your work.

Try going to the Creative Cloud Desktop app and see if you're still signed in. Just a thought that somehow AE thinks you're signed out. Don't sign out if you're not that, that could also cause AE to quit on you. 

You could also try a File -> Dependencies -> Collect Files... and see if AE can generate a new project for you.

If you do a Save As 23.* did that create anything for you? 

[logan_mcnay]

Hey Jenkmeister, 

I went & uninstalled AE, reinstalled, updated to version 24.2.1 (Build 2), & I've continued to have this issue not being able to save or save as. I keep losing days of work, would you have any suggestions? 

Also, other system specs are:

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 5975 32 core

256GB RAM

SSDS

2x NVIDIA 4090s

Drivers have been updated, windows has been updated

Thanks

[logan_mcnay · Accepted solution]

I believe I found the solution to my issue, I have a composition that when I duplicate it, I am no longer able to save the file; it must have a bug in it, so I screenshotted the layers I needed, reopened the file, created a new composition from scratch, and rebuilt that particular comp, & now it saves just fine. Hope that helps lead anyone else in the right direction who has this issue

[armand_8377]

Ran into a similar sounding issue earlier this week. Lost about 2 days of work because of it. It's a real sneaky one.
Just posting what was the solution for me:

I found myself unable to save my working file. This has happened to me for the third time in a week:
As I Cmd+S save the file, the little pop-up box that indicates the saving progress —the one with the little blue bar— pops up, but doesn’t fill up completely. It got stuck on a certain percentage (last time 41%, this time 71%), but rather than giving an error message or anything similar, it just seems to abort the saving process and closes the box. It looked as if I had saved it, but I actually hadn't.

I tried to remove all unused footage. Then all linked images/video/audio. This seems to bump the percentage of saving up from 71% to 75% strangely enough. Finally, when I deleted all layered Illustrator files (.ai), it managed to save again. These files were connected to an external server, but that connection was stable, and I could locate the files through right clicking > Reveal in Finder.
This happened using After Effects 2025, v25.1.0 (Build 68), running on a November 2024 MacBook Pro with Apple M4 Max, operating on OS Sequoia 15.4.1.