new IMPORT tab doesn't allow to unselect all or multiple items (Premiere 2022)

[Guest]

Hello! when creating a new project I want to import only ONE subfolder/file from the main folder where my whole project is located, but there is no way to unselect all but one folder/file,  premiere just automatically selects all files from the previously double-clicked main folder, that has inside many folders and files, but I just only need one of them and unselecting one by one is a waste of time, especially if there are hundreds of files for example.
Am I doing something wrong? Or it's just a poorly designed Import tab.

[Ann Bens]

You can skip the new import tab by giving your project a name and give it a location > OK

 Import your folder in the Project window or with the Media Browser.

[Hunter_PackHealth]

While a "select all" and "select none" is, in my opinion, essential, if you go ahead and create your project and use the import file from the overhead (main) menu instead of the import tab, you do not get the same behavior - Premiere in this case defaulting to the behavior of expoler (Windows) or finder (Mac).

This purported workflow (above) needs work in my opinion as any check-to-select interface needs refinement options especially in the case of rapid turnaround work.

[Taylor28499179y5z1]

Please listen to Hunter!
Having to google how to get past this very simple user interface is embarrassing. God forbid my boss saw me struggle to deselect files. I get paid by the hour and him seeing me double click 200 files to unselect them is insanity. It points to a lack of quality assurance in what is supposed to be the brand name in video editing software.

[Taylor28499179y5z1]

Also god forbid you hit CTRL+A Like I just did and have to close premiere Pro since there's no way to undo it, haha

[Roger30591977inry]

This is correct. There is a bug with that too. If you do hit shift-ctrl-a, it will deselect all. But if you do that, you can no longer crtl-a to select all. I recorded my screen of this behavior. I'll post when I'm back in the  office on Monday. 

[R Neil Haugen]

Ann's right ... name your project, select a location, click Create and build your project in the normal ways for more complex or specific needs.

The new import process was added as a replacement for the options on the old 'new project' dialog that few users ever used. This added import process is something that is designed for someone who needs to make and finish quick projects ... maybe many in a day ... an example would be a TV newsroom editor.

So it's simple, grabs everything in the folder & under in one 'flat' bin ... and I've been told is fantastic for those that need that.

But for most of us, it ain't a good way to start a project, and we weren't expected to use it anyway.

Neil

[Trace3150085596d1]

I create vids for different clients on a daily basis using the same open and close from their past videos.  I remove the old video and insert the new one, bringing them in from different folders.  I just change the text.  Please put in the select all or delete all check box.  You can have it default to all checked, but to have to uncheck 27 vids individually to get just one file is annoying and time consuming when I have other vides to complete.  Thank you, Trace

[Trace3150085596d1]

btw, I do not believe newsrooms are your primary user base.  Just sayin...

[R Neil Haugen]

First, understand ... I don't use the new import page, it's not useful for anything I do. And I've modded the export presets so the export page isn't a big pain anymore. Not changes I needed, clear on that?

I'm just not sure why you'd make that statement about newsroom editors ... that's simply one example of users with different needs than you or I have. There are many others one can easily give. That are in major corporation in-house video production among other things.

Again ... the new stuff doesn't fit my needs. But that doesn't mean I don't think they should do something that does fit the needs of others. Which ... darn it all ... but those changes do make great sense for some users.

I would heavily upvote allowing us to select the old or new processes as a User Default ... naturally.

Neil

[Roger30591977inry]

I thought I was going insane today. I couldn't figure out how to select or unselect. It was trying to import my entire computer. I immedately got on here to see I am not the only one. It's inexuseable bug that needs to be fixed or at least give us buttons to toggle the behavior on or off. 

[R Neil Haugen]

I'm puzzled as I cannot replicate this behavior.

In the Import page, I go to any 'main' folder of media, with subfolders, and no subfolder is auto-selected. I can select or unselect folders at will.

So I'm trying to figure out what gets the behavior you're getting.

[R Neil Haugen]

Something that's not obvious, is that Premiere's Select/Deselect keyboard shortcuts work in this panel also.

On my rig, that's Ctrl-A for select all, and Ctrl/Shft-A for deselect all.

That may help you out some.

[Roger30591977inry]

Shift-ctrl-a does work, but only once. There's a bug that occurs occasionally where once you deselect all, you can no longer shift-a to select all again. I did a screen recording of it. I suppose I'll submit to the bug section and it might get sorted out. 

[R Neil Haugen]

That would be a total pain!

I can select all, change a few to deselected, then deselect all repeatedly and it works as expected.

What you're getting is definitely off and wrong ... which always leads to  ... why?

I wonder if anyone has information as to why sometimes deselect doesn't work ... @mattchristensen you seem to be a good go-to source for odd behaviors  ... ?

[mattchristensen]

I recognize this doesn't cover all the cases listed here, but since it hasn't been mentioned I wanted to point out you can right click down in the tray and choose from these options:

You can also Shift+select in the tray or Command+select then delete to remove items from the tray so they won't be imported.

[Roger30591977inry]

I included my transcript because the video is 3min long.  1:17+ is the section displaying the Select All/Deselect all behavior not working properly. 2:00+ is the rapidly growing folder file count in the tray below even though I manualy deselected everything within that folder, so I have to "clear" in the tray. Hope this makes sense! 

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:00:51

All right. I figured the

00:00:00:51 - 00:00:02:43
easiest way to do this is to show you what I'm seeing

00:00:02:43 - 00:00:07:53
when you click on a folder, it's going to immediately

00:00:07:53 - 00:00:14:32
select everything within that folder and then Premier is going to start reading how many usable files are within that folder, right?

00:00:14:37 - 00:00:27:34
But we don't want that behavior because it's going to slow down my system. And I mean, I'm on a mac studio, so it should be plenty fast. But still, even that is it takes a while once you do selector to just start working properly.

00:00:27:34 - 00:00:34:29
the only way to actually highlight a folder is to hit command. Oops. See?

00:00:34:31 - 00:01:00:40
There we go. See, Now you can use arrow keys, this blue bounding box here, the highlighter. That's. That's what you show up when you click on a folder. Right. And then if you want to hit the tick box to select everything within that folder, then you select the tick box. I mean, I guess I understand the behavior of why it's doing it, so it automatically starts selecting and reading how many files are within that folder.

00:01:00:45 - 00:01:04:23
But it's just frustrating because I

00:01:04:23 - 00:01:13:21
want to drill down into the folder and I don't want that main thing selected. So the only way to do that is to

00:01:13:21 - 00:01:16:02
shift command A to Deselect all.

00:01:16:02 - 00:01:17:29
And here's another thing.

00:01:17:29 - 00:01:19:13
Once you do shift command A,

00:01:19:13 - 00:01:23:03
you can no longer command A to select everything again.

00:01:23:08 - 00:01:24:59
So once the

00:01:24:59 - 00:01:36:17
Deselect all has been used it, you can no longer select all. And then even if you click and then hit command, it won't it won't do evidence in the folder.

00:01:36:17 - 00:01:37:57
But on out now it's reading.

00:01:37:57 - 00:01:40:52
Everything, so it's going to slow down. Okay, there we go.

00:01:40:52 - 00:01:59:58
So if you select a folder. Okay, which you, you can either click the tick box or you just single click it because then it automatically gets a tick box. Now it starts reading everything down here. And if you drill into this folder, everything's selected.

00:02:00:03 - 00:02:19:15
But if you do shift command a to D, select all, it's still loading all of those files from this folder, even though

00:02:19:15 - 00:02:24:24
I see I double click that it's bogging it down because it's reading and

00:02:24:24 - 00:02:46:45
I can't see anything in here that's highlighted, right? Nothing's highlighted, but still it's reading and wanting to import these, but it can't import them because you've not selected anything.

00:02:46:50 - 00:02:57:35
So the only way to do this is to come down here and come down here. Right click. There we go. And for

00:02:57:35 - 00:03:01:51
clear all. Clear would work.

[R Neil Haugen]

I only get 20 seconds of video there in the download. So I can't see most of what you recorded.

I would note, that typically I would navigate to the folder I'm going to pull media from using the left side area, not the central area as you are doing. So when I do click on a folder it's the one with the media I want to peruse if not also import.

[Roger30591977inry]

Ah, got it. This is the correct one. 

[R Neil Haugen]

First note ... again, I would use the sliding section on the left to drill down to folder trees first.

Next note, when doubleclicking on a folder in the middle selection, for me, it opens that folder without 'selecting' it.

Next, I can do Ctrl-A and Ctrl/Shift-A repeatedly without troubles, so that's a problem for you for certain. You should be able to do so!

I think that the difference is I don't 'select' an upper folder with a single click, I double click to open a folder, and select the contents.