NEVER import assets as sequence

[dparsons85]

Is it possible to prevent After Effects from importing assets as a sequence? I have a folder with 3 quicktime movies that I cannot drag and drop into After Effects because it keeps giving me the error: "After Effects error: file 'X' cannot be imported - files of type "" cannot be used as sequences." I can import it just fine though if I'm in After Effects and choose File > Import and navigate to the folder. I never work with image sequences and would like to turn that off as an option until I need it.

Basically, I've discovered that Windows  prevents me from dragging and dropping assets all the time with error messages like this even though After Effects can import them without issue if I just do it a different way. I never had this issue on Macs. I hate having the assets right in front of me in the File Explorer and instead of just dragging and dropping them in I have to go into After Effects and re-drill down through all the folders a second time in order to import them.

Any and all help is appreciated. Thanks!

[P.M.B]

I don't have any problem dragging multiple files from explorer.

I duplicated a a.mov file a few times and dragged them in fine.

Then I renamed them in a way a sequence would be named and that worked fine too.

I also don't know of any AE or Windows system settings that would cause this.

It seems like a very odd problem.

Maybe it would help if you described exactly the naming convention, OS version, AE version.

The more precise you can be the easier it will be for someone to try and reproduce the error.

[RobShultz]

Do you have the latest version of After Effects? I think that I ran in to that problem in a previous version but it works fine in the newest Version.

[Warren Heaton · Accepted solution]

It sounds like you're dragging and dropping a folder that contains movie files instead of the movie files themselves.

AE imports a folder as an image sequence which means that the files contained in the folder must be an image sequence file format (PNG, TIFF, TARGA, JPEG, etc.).

You can alter this by holding the Option key on Mac or Alt key on Windows as you complete the drag and drop action.

-Warren

[P.M.B]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Warren+Heaton  wrote

It sounds like you're dragging and dropping a folder

-Warren

Yes!  I can duplicate the error by putting the files into a folder.  And holding down ALT is the fix.