Why is an "out" point added automatically?

Did adobe ever make a way to turn this automatic OUT POINT function off?
(It's annoying that my entire timeline gets highlighted when i just want to mark an IN POINT

and also causes me to make timeline mistakes.)

Yeah, this is a terrible "feature". Three-point editing is... three points. If I enter an IN and an OUT in my source window, there is no need for Premiere to create an obsolete out point on the timeline, because I already specified the length in my source window. All I want is in in point on the timeline, no need for Premiere to "suggest" otherwise.

Just because this was answered "correctly" doesn't mean this is right or in need of change. It's very easy to accidentally erase your entire timeline with the misstroke of a key. So many times I've been zoomed in editing away only to zoom back out again and I've lost the rest of my timeline. I'd like the ability to turn this off and return to "the bad old days of 4 point editing" and now consider this thread reopened. 

There is no out point BUT if you hit shift+O which means Go To Out the playhead will park itself on the last frame of the last clip.

It is not.

On the timeline:

You see the in "{" & the gray go across forever with no out. If you have an out you will have the "}" icon to show the out is set.

If you are just setting the in point on the timeline you can just use the playhead.

On the clip:

You see the in "{" & the gray go across to the media out. On the clip you can only go from the media start to the media end. If you do not have the video In or video out set it will use the media start and the media end.

Why is an "out" point added automatically to the end of my timeline when I put in an "in" point for an edit?

It isn't for me.

DHBCreative  wrote Why is an "out" point added automatically to the end of my timeline when I put in an "in" point for an edit?

[edited]

I personally do not look at it as "added" as much as an "implied" IN point until you choose something else. If you choose IN point, you can't do anything with that alone... it needs an OUT point... so Premiere has indicated the default OUT point is the end of the timeline until you say otherwise.

It doesn't hurt anything for that to occur... it's implicit behavior that's sort of trying to help, to hedge a bet of sorts that you may like that maximal range default choice for OUT... and it allows you to immediately do things that relate to having an IN/OUT set without clarifying OUT further.

While your current intent may not be to use the end of the timeline for OUT, when a time comes where you want to mark everything from the current point to the end (in the timeline or source monitor), you will appreciate the brevity of being able to simply mark an IN point, knowing that Premiere immediately assumes the end is the OUT until you make it shorter. It assumes the maximal range for you. It's a choice the app designers made. It's better than not having any implied OUT point which would not hedge any bet thereby reducing the chances you'd be ready to go after a single "I" keystroke.

Note, this behavior is not only on the timeline, you can count on it in the source monitor as well... examples of using implied end as OUT...

Examples...

• You want to lift or extract everything from the current position to the end of the timeline... so you set and IN and you do the lift/extract. No need for you to specify an OUT because Premiere helped you with implicit behavior. If you don't want that, no problem, just specify your desired OUT point... there's no harm... Premiere is just potentially saving you from settting "O" in case you ever want the end to OUT. If you don't want end as OUT, just set OUT to where you want it... until such time, Premiere will indicate OUT is end with the highlight to the end which clearly tells you that's the range until you shorten it or use it as is.
• You want to insert the source monitor clip from the current position to the end, skipping a beginning that has some setup discussion which you want to omit... you press "I" and choose Insert to insert from the current pos to the end of the source monitor.
• You made changes to the timeline and want to export everything from the current position to the end... so you press "I" and CTRL-M and export defaults to a range of IN-to-OUT so you're good to go. Premiere could require you to go to the end and press O but it's defaulting to automatically choosing the maximum position, the end, as the OUT point until you choose something before that ... or simply go with that as a the default.

Think of it as the way the application behaves as a best effort which is better than doing nothing... it could behave by doing nothing by default for OUT but that doesn't offer any chance to make use of a single keystroke for both IN/OUT to be set. It's not that the default OUT will always make sense, but it could make sense and that's better than nothing, so the app designers decided end as OUT by default, and I personally agree. They could have prevented IN/OUT operations until you explicitly specified OUT... there's nothing to stop that... but it's a poorer choice as it doesn't hedge bets on behavior so is less nimble in that regard. You'd be surprised how much you'll come to expect end as a default OUT... it's more useful than you think as you do more with Premiere. It's also a minor thing too... meaning if you never find value in that, it's really no harm/foul... it's just the way it behaves by default which is better than doing nothing.

I mean Premiere could default to the end of the current clip (instead of the timeline)... but it doesn't... there's likely historical reasons for that.

I like that it defaults that way... it sort to me means that Premiere is saying to me "I'll assume you want to select everything from the current position to the end until you select less than that" and for cases where you want that default behavior, it saves you a keystroke or two.

So it's default behavior that, to me, makes logical sense, as well as hedging to try to be smart as I work with it to save me keystrokes.. to give me something to work with until I choose something less.

Keep in mind that default behavior isn't always necessarily something that's useful to you... it's the notion that attempting to choose something is better than forcing you to always have to select OUT which will always be useful until you use two keystrokes along probably other mouse clicking etc. Also, an default off end as OUT makes sense for a number of situations... it's deemed a good choice for a default.

Hopefully that makes sense... maybe others know the history on it but that's how I see it and that works for me!

By the way, your question gives rise to an interesting feature suggestion... allowing a user to select a pref to choose the desired default... end of timeline or clip in SM, always end of clip, nothing etc. My guess is it would be a low pri consideration given all of the churn for more important features but it's interesting to consider.

If you're putting something in then it has to have somewhere to go.

[EDIT - some unnecessary language was removed by a moderator as it did not relate to the question or help understanding]