Copying a project to an external SSD using quirky Project Manager

Report · Jun 11, 2023

As I type this, I am copying a project from the internal SSD of my iMac to an external SSD using Project Manager in Premiere Pro. The footprint of the entire project is about 477GB. The amount of free space on the external SSD is about 803GB. Seems like a no-brainer. After 6 1/2 hours I get an "unknown error" with absolutely ZERO explanation (screenshot attached), although I was noticing that all of that 803GB was used up a couple of minutes before the error popped up. Do the PP engineers really not know that this a problem? PP told me the copied project would be about 477GB after clicking on the "Calculate" button. I truly, truly, TRULY do not understand how Premiere Pro can be so robust in certain areas and then s**t the bed in other areas so gracefully. It took over 6 hours to get nothing but a useless error message. Any input or feedback on this one would be much appreciated. My apologies if I'm failing to offer any other details that would be beneficial to troubleshooting.

Report · Jun 12, 2023

I also want to say that the way Premiere Pro simply throws every single asset into a single folder when copying a project to another drive is lazy software engineering at best. Editors spend time organizing assets into specific folders for quick reference and this copy feature in Premiere Pro negates all of it. Why? I have a feeling when I open the project from the new drive every single video file, audio file, graphic, photo, sound effect, etc will have to manually found and relinked. This really feels like a half-baked feature

Report · Jun 12, 2023

Try copying it manually.

Report · Jun 12, 2023

That's traditionally how I've done this but I was curious about the Project Manager feature after seeing a rough demo of it on YouTube. Is it possible that the engineers can at least change the absolute file paths for the assets during the transfer process to reflect the new volume they are being copied to? Whether copying the folder structure and heirarchy manually in Finder (or Windows Explorer) to an external SSD or using this transfer feature in the Project Manager, the file paths of each and every asset remain set to the original home of the project's creation. In other words, opening a project that has been copied and transferred from its new home on an external SSD will need to have all of the assets re-linked. That heart-stopping dialogue window pops up requiring you to dig through a now single folder of multiple file types and re-link clips from your sequences to the source files. Again, it feels like a half-baked feature.

Report · Jun 12, 2023

Is it possible that the engineers can at least change the absolute file paths for the assets during the transfer process to reflect the new volume they are being copied to?

By @MeKevinB

Post that in the Ideas section of the Premiere Pro forum:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro/ct-p/ct-premiere-pro?page=1&sort=latest_replies&filter=a...