"close gap" not working properly in Adobe Premiere.

[jujumayuyuu]

As you can see all the other tracks are locked so there should be no interference with the ripple delete. It ripple deletes just fine, but "close gap" just doesn't do it entirely. What could this be for? Is there any way to circumvent this to make it work properly?

[PaulMurphy · Accepted solution]

The Sequence > Close Gap command will only close a gap if one exists across all tracks at the same timeline position. This behavior applies regardless of whether the tracks are locked—locking a track only prevents its clips from being moved, but doesn't exclude the track from being considered when identifying gaps.

Best Workaround:

• For isolated gaps, using Ripple Delete is typically the most effective method.

If you have multiple gaps to address:

• Use Sequence > Go to Gap > Next in Track to quickly jump between gaps on a selected track.
• Alternatively, you can:
  1. Lock all tracks you want to ignore.
  2. Add a long clip (such as a Color Matte) to a new empty track that spans the entire sequence.
  3. Move the clips with gaps from their original tracks onto this new track, so they overwrite the Color Matte.
  4. Move the clips back to their original tracks—this will leave the gaps reflected on the new track.
  5. Select all clips on the new track and use Ripple Delete to remove the gaps efficiently.

These steps help simulate a more comprehensive gap-closing behavior across multiple tracks.