Scratch disks are write protected or unavailable?

[Andreas_St1]

Premier Pro on a MAC.

Error code:

Scratch disks are write protected or unavailable. To open this project,, the scratch disks will be set to your Documents folder. Would you like to continue?

I don't know what to do, i've googled this issue and can't find any solutions.

/ Andreas

[chadiwack]

DUDE! THANK YOU!!! I updated my 2019 Mac on the weekend from Big Sur to Monterey and suddenly got this Scratch Disk Error, as I store 90% of my Premiere prj on my external harddrive I was at a loss as to what to do. I'm very grateful that you took the time to post your fix/solve comment. It's back to normal for me. Thank you again. Not all heroes wear capes, some carry keyboards 🙂

[chadiwack]

Good afternoon Andreas, I was wondering if you ever found a fix for this. I am having the same problem. I updated from Big Sur to Monterey and have been having this problem ever since. I can't access any of my external drive premiere projects.

[Nicholas253580665dn2]

So I have the answer for one version of this issue. If you have google drive setup up mirroring an actual hard drive on your computer. Sometimes premiere likes to be a brat and default the scratch disks to that specific drive which is quite litterally impossible to work in every capacity. So just switch the drive and everything will work fine

[laurap15576738]

Hi Andreas_St1

I had tried this solution, but for whatever reason it didn't work for me. Maybe it was an issue with my hard drive. I ended up using a workaround - hopefully if someone has the same challenges, the workaround will help them (also on this thread).

[Esteban2803614099fg]

You saved my a** man! I really really appreciate that! I was going crazy too! Thaaaaaaanks, cheers!

[Paul292721531pqt]

One of my seemingly unrelated hard disks was full. I freed some storage space, and this fixed the problem.

[whitneyl39007655]

Thanks, that worked!

[Andrey_a77]

I had this error as well and all different "solutions" I could find on the internet didn't work for me (I am on iMac 21). And then I fixed the error myself. The error was popping up for the "default" project.

I did the following to fix it:
1. Find the Scratch folder. (for me it was in my "User/Documents/Adobe/..." path
2. Right-click on the "Adobe" folder in the "User/Documents/" path and click on "Properties"
3. In the Properties pane go to the Access settings in the bottom
4. Open the "lock" in the lower-right corner to be able to apply any changes. Make sure the Access settings showing are correct and you have the "read & wright" access to this folder
5. Click on the "3 dots in a circle" sign in the lower-left next to the "-" sign and select "apply to all inbound folders"

Now all the access is updeted for the folders within the "User/Documents/Adobe" folder, including the Scratch folders. Restart Premiere Pro and no more "Scratch disk" error should pop up.

[Kartikey5E99]

so this finallyy helped mannnn 

you just have to go to user/documents/adobe/premiere pro/ 24.0 or whatever version you have the folder will be there like 22.0 or 23.0 and then get info of that foder by cmd+i and then unlock the lock on lower right and change read only to read and write and magiccc the problems gone

[agile_writer5E61]

i Love u

[terry_7973]

It's January of 2025 and I have a new MacBook Pro running Sequoia 15.2 and the newest Premiere Pro 25.1.0 and I get the above mentioned error, 

Scratch disks are write protected or unavailable. To open this project,, the scratch disks will be set to your Documents folder. Would you like to continue?

This happens When I hit the in-app tutorial under the help menu.  Yes, I am brand new to Premiere

I have tried the solutions mentioned here to no success.  The hold the option button down to reset the settings doesn't work, the full disk access doesn't work, I have uninstalled and reinstalled and no joy.  Any suggestions for this decade?  THX!

[laurap15576738]

Hi Terry,

I offered this workaround a few years ago, after I couldn't find anything else that worked (original post with vid is still in the thread). 

Please let me know if this helps:

This happened to me when I upgraded both my Macbook Pro & Premiere Pro version to 2022. I have 1.9 TB of audio/video/etc on an external hard drive that is the location for my project files and source content for this series of projects.

I believe I tried all the above solutions, without success. I DID find a workaround, however! 

I created a new project on my laptop with PP 2022, with its native settings, but created a new folder on my desktop for the new project. To keep myself organized, I used the same project name, but appended it to "2022".

Once the new project was open, I went to my hard drive & dragged the old .prproj file into the import box. I left it at default settings and clicked "ok".  It took a few minutes for it to finish - you may see the dreaded spinning ball o'doom because it's taxing on even my new, robust system.

But: ALL the sequences, original audio files & original video files were brought in, in their appropriate bins, ready to edit!

I chose to keep all source files on my external hard drive - but, there is an option to create a folder on your computer with all the assets. 

I saved this new file & repeated the process with all the projects on the drive. All successful!

I'm attaching a video of the process (cutting out over a minute of the lag time).

Hope this solution works for anyone else who had tried all of the above! It didn't fix the problem, but it's a great workaround.

[terry_7973]

Thanks LauraP,  I don't have an big external drive yet for this and was trying to wait for a few thunderbolt 5 versions to get on the market, but I might just get a 40GBs T4 drive to try this out.  Thank you for sharing your innovative workaround for this issue 

[laurap15576738]

Hmm. I'm not sure if you'd need the external first. Maybe try just making a new file in the current premiere & dragging one of your old .prproj files onto the new timeline. At least you'd get a handle if this could be your solution.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Have you checked Security and Privacy Settings yet, as mentioned in the solution, @terry_7973? That is the main solution to this issue these days.

Thanks,

Kevin

[terry_7973]

Kevin,  

That is one of the first things I did.  Premiere has full disk access and in the security section it is set properly as well.

Still no luck,  I would think many new M4 machines would be reporting this problem as well.

Terry