Premiere Pro Keeps Creating .prin Files – What Are They and Can I Stop It?

[ravidnr]

Hi Adobe Community,

I've noticed that Adobe Premiere Pro keeps generating .prin files in my project folders. I'm not entirely sure what these files are for. They seem to appear after saving or sometimes even while I'm just working on a project.

A few questions I have:

1. What exactly are these .prin files?

2. Are they necessary for my project workflow?

3. Is there a way to prevent them from being created, or at least have Premiere clean them up automatically?

I'm using [insert your version of Premiere Pro] on [your operating system], and this has been a consistent issue for me. It's cluttering my project folders, and I want to make sure I'm not doing something wrong.

Thanks in advance for any help or clarification!

Best regards,

[Alexander_DVA · Accepted solution]

Thank you for your feedback.

These files are part of the new media intelligence feature which powers the visual search in Premiere Pro. Premiere Pro analyzes all the video data in your project and creates a search database from the visual information. If you then hit the "search" button in the top right of the header bar you are e.g. able to search for complex expressions like "drone shot of a red car in a city"
The media intelligence settings to enable/disable this feature are available on the import page or through the app preferences.

See more details about media intelligence here: Adobe Helpx - Premiere Pro Media Intelligence Search

Hope this helps - and happy searching!

Best regards,
 Alexander

[ryant41984851]

Can we please get a feature that saves PRIN and PEK files to a folder rather than next to the project file? This creates terrible project folder clutter.

[ravidnr]

can i remove the feature of auto creation of prin files on the same location where files is saved

[R Neil Haugen]

Those files are essential for the normal operation of the project ... so they aren't 'cluttering' the project folder, they are now a regular part of the project file structure.

This is not like say audio previews.

[Salvador Torres]

It does create clutter, it is an unwanted file constantly popping up on OUR SELECTED file structure, not yours.

If this file is now necessary, we should get the option to save it either where we choose our CACHE or any other location of our choise. Thanks.

[R Neil Haugen]

As another user, I'm looking for some clarity here. I simply don't understand.

It seems adding a second file to the project filing system is clutter? I'm not understanding that. As I've had programs over the years that had a built-in system where there was a database file, a project file, and a "preferences" file in the top folder. If you copied that folder, you could add your general data files to the structure to rebuild the operations.

But there were always those three files in the program's user setup.

So would find those three files a horrible mess or something?

I'm quite as curious as I am puzzled here. Not at all critical, as we all are different. I'd just love to understand your viewpoint better as a learning thing.

[Salvador Torres]

Neil

I've been working in the advertising and film industry as a Producer, Director and Editor for over 40 years now, and have been using Premiere since it's inception on Mac on 1991.  

While working on multiple projects simultaneously, it is crucial to maintain a clear and precise file and folder arquitechture,  especially when others are expected to either collaborate, or when you're handing off a project to someone else.  As you know, projects and its files just contiinue to grow during the post process.

Keeping this in mind, and same as with with all temp or system created files (Caches, Preview, Peak, CFA, AutoSave, etc.), the user should be able to select where he wants these stored.  Either on a new folder or next the Prem project.

Regards, 

- Sal

[R Neil Haugen]

Hey, I think we're of the same general um ... generational group, cool!  😉

Do you work with anyone using either Avid or Resolve? Or Baselight?

[Salvador Torres]

I've used Avid in the past when it was kinda of the industry standard for film, when RAW files started being used for video.  
But now, at least for most needs it makes more sense to use the integration of the Adobe CS.

The Lumetri color tools on Prem now are pretty robust, so unless I need serious and detailed color correction, I stay in Prem.  Otherwise I'll use Resolve.   

[Salvador Torres]

Forgot to mention that ive not used Baselight.  

[R Neil Haugen]

Yea, totally understood. 

I'm mostly working within Premiere's stuff, and also in Resolve, occasionally needing to do cross app stuff between Pr and Ae or Pr and Resolve, occasionally Resolve and Ae. It's never as simple as I'd prefer. Never.

[No Interest]

Thanks. How do we automatically save these PRIN files to a separate folder, like audio previews, auto-saves, etc.? 

[Salvador Torres]

As of now you cannot manage where to save these files. 

Really hoping that soon we get the option to be able to chose the location.  

[BrianLevin]

Just jumping on the bandwagon here as I recently updated to 25.4 from 25.2, which did not have Media Intelligence, so the PRIN files are new to me. I've disabled every toggle you can to prevent them from showing up because I don't see myself using the Search feature at the moment, I'll test it in the future. But re: PRIN files, these should really just exist in the Adobe-Common folder of your user library, not next to project files. I echo all the sentiments about a clean folder structure. When I teach Premiere, when I consult as a trainer, and in all of my tutorials that I've created, I aggressively stress the importance of good clean file structure organization, and my cardinal rule is that the ONLY FILE that should be visible to the naked eye in a project folder is the one and true current project. Having PRIN files all over the place, say if I am duplicating my project file and changing the version number on a daily basis, is going to create unwanted clutter. I would be totally fine if the PRIN files ended up in a folder called "Adobe Premiere Pro Cache Files" in this long list of other Scratch Disk friendly items, thus keeping everything in one place and keeping the main project folder clear of unwanted clutter.

But yeah, super disagree with Neil above that this is just part of the project file. It isn't, it's a media cache file of sorts, it needs to be sorted with other cache-like files, either in the Adobe-Common folder, or in its own Scratch Disk type of folder.

[R Neil Haugen]

If a project uses any of the machine learning stuff, the data of which is stored in the .prin file, not the project file, then ... move the project, you lose all the stuff in that file. Perhaps if they'd simply left this in the .proj file like all the sequence data, users wouldn't be complaining.

Over the last forty plus years, I've used all sorts of database and other apps that would have two or three 'main' files you had to keep together. So you copy move the folder.

That was always a clean and efficient way to work with them. 

With that background, I simply cannot see this as something different than what I've dealt with without any issues many times before.

But naturally, we are all different.

[BrianLevin]

I get that, but adding that data to the project file seems problematic in the way that Warp Stabilizer cache can drastically balloon a project file. I have not yet battle tested the PRIN files so I'll know eventually if I run into the issue of versioning up my Premiere project against a PRIN file, but generally I'm just talking about organization here and user experience. This is an unwanted messy way of working.

Just this afternoon I was tutoring someone who showed me their desktop and holy cow... it was a nightmare of Pr and AE files, folders, JPGs, etc. If you started adding PRIN files to that scary mess...how is the unorganized Premiere user supposed to deal with that? I'm a super conscious organized editor, but not everyone works this way.

[R Neil Haugen]

Oh, Lord ... the mess so many people have on their computers! Yowza freaking woa.

But then, just looking across my 8 iternal SSDs, these are past the two Nvme SSD drives, one for OS/programs, the other for all cache files ... the 8 'content' SSDs need some cleanup. I haven't done that really for about year now, and it's time. Never enjoyable but needed as a routine thing.