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Participating Frequently
August 2, 2021
Question

What happens when I delete rendered video

  • August 2, 2021
  • 2 replies
  • 2818 views

When I delete rendered video from my laptop to make more room memory wise, I lose the edited video.  What do I need to do?  Should I copy and paste the unrendered video in the same project so I have it as I need to make room for new video projects on my MAC (FYI I save the rendered video on an external hard drive.)

 

Thanks for any advice.

 

Yvonne

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2 replies

R Neil Haugen
Legend
August 3, 2021

"Renders" ... are simply preview files. Deleting renders doesn't have any effect on a timeline other than perhaps slowing playback.

 

"Render and replace" is an entirely different process, where it encodes a new file to replace the original clip on the sequence. The way to get back to originals from R&R is to right-click "restore unrendered".

 

So ... do you mean previews made by simply rendering from the sequence, or new media made by doing a render & replace?

 

Neil

Everyone's mileage always varies ...
Peru Bob
Community Expert
Community Expert
August 2, 2021

Let's get the terminology straight so that we can fully understand the issue:

 

Render in Premiere Pro means to create preview files by pressing Enter on the timeline or by Sequence > Render Work Area from the menu.

Exporting is the process of creating a stand alone file for external viewing or for reimporting into Premiere Pro.

 

Please explain more clearly exactly what you are trying to do.

YismynameAuthor
Participating Frequently
August 2, 2021

Yes...so after I do that and save to my ext. hard drive, at some point I delete on my laptop the rendered files and what happens is the edited footage disappears in Premiere Pro on the timeline in the project.  Does that make sense?

Peru Bob
Community Expert
Community Expert
August 2, 2021

If you delete the media used in the timeline from its location on the hard drive, that will happen.

Premiere Pro only acts as a database or shortcut pointing to those files and doesen't actually store them in the project file.

 

Rendering creates a separate file that makes the timeline preview better.