How does saving work in Premiere when you have multiple open projects?

[Robbie34135385e7mh]

This is so complex to even try to word but I'm finding it very confusing. I'll call my projects 'P'.

Basically I have P1 and P2. I started with just P1 open but wanted to drag some files in from P2 whilst still keeping P1 open . I then closed Premiere and must have only saved the P2 section, and now when I open P1, the only thing that opens is P2. This doesn't make any sense to me as I'm sure that even if you have multiple projects open, it's supposed to save P2 as P2 even if there are other projects open at the same time. What seems to have happened, however, is that it's overwritten P1 and now P1 just doesn't exist, but how does this happen if they're separate projects? Yes, I didn't save P1 but why is it not just opening P1 in its latest form?

What makes this more frustrating is that I assumed if it was going to behave like this, then maybe at least I would find P1 within this file that has now been overwritten as P2, but it's just completely gone.

[Sumeet Kumar Choubey]

Hi Robbie34135385e7mh,

Welcome to the community. Project files with separate names can't overwrite each other. Have you tried searching for .prproj on your computer? It should list all the Premiere Pro project files saved on the system, and you can check if you have that missing project in that list. Also, is the option for At Startup set to Open Most Recent under Premiere Pro Preferences > General? If so, this can cause Premiere Pro to auto-load the last worked project even though you manually opened a different project.

Thanks,

Sumeet

[JonesVid]

If you start with P1 lets call that the master project.

You should see your Project bin in the Projects area and the project sequence in the Timeline assuming you have created the sequence for P1

When you open P2 you will see a new Project tab on the left and another sequence in the Timeline which is the P2 sequence.

As you click on each tab on each sequence in the timeline individually that will be the active project you are working on.

So once you have dragged files (or clips) from the P2 project into the master P1 project, then to save P1, ensure the P1 sequence tab  is highlighted and active and save that Project P1.

That should just add the clips from P2 into your P1 project without affecting P2.

I then closed Premiere and must have only saved the P2 section,

If you just shut down Premiere without ensuring P1 sequence was highlighted then saving it, that's why opening P1 will not have any saved changes in it as you have lost the changes you made by dragging P2 files onto P1.

It can be tricky but always  ensure the correct project sequence is highlighted and Project tab then save it.

[Robbie34135385e7mh]

I might be misunderstanding here, but the issue was not just with changes being lost, it was actually with P1 basically turning into the P2 project. That's what I'm confused about because it must have meant I had saved P2, but rather than saving P2 as P2 it saved P2 as P1, overwriting it. I don't know if that makes any sense at all. 

[R Neil Haugen]

And consider going to their Productions mode so you never have to deal with this.

[JonesVid]

Agreed - 'Productions Mode ' is something I need to look into properly myself.

[mattchristensen]

@Robbie34135385e7mh I agree with Sumeet that if you successfully quit Premiere Pro, and did not click "No" to any Save dialogs that may have appeared, your project should be there somewhere. It's difficult to know exactly what to suggest without seeing what you see, but, I figured I could give a little additional background to how things work with multiple projects in Premiere Pro.

Premiere Pro supports having as many project files open at once as you like. You can always get a full list of all open projects by going to Window > Projects. If there is a check next to the project name, that means there is a Project panel open somewhere that is pointed at that project. If there is no check, the project is still open (using system memory) but there is no Project panel open for it. Click the project to open a Project panel for that project.

Additionally, there is always one (and only one) active project. This is the project that will receive project-specific commands, like "Save Project" or "Close Project". The active project's name is always in the top center of the header bar. If you had P1 and P2 open and clicked between their Project panels or between two sequences, you'll see the top header bar change back and forth between P1 and P2.

Finally, when you do a File > Save (or CMD+S), that is only targeting the active project. You can use File > Save All Projects if you want to make sure to save all open projects. Some editors even prefer to change the CMD+S to be Save All Projects, just to be safe. If you quit Premiere Pro and any open projects are unsaved, you'll get a separate "Do you want to save?" dialog warning for each project.