Where are the Render files?

[videope]

I just learned that every time I render a project a render file is created.

Where are they?  Can I look at them?

I see there is the option to delete them but before I do that I would like to know what they are.

Also, is there any reason to keep them?  Maybe I should just keep the last "rendition"?

If they are actual files they might be occupyig space unnecessarily.

Please advise.  Thxs.

[ExactImage · Accepted solution]

In the "Adobe Premiere Pro Preview Files" folder.  For me, this is in my main project folder.

You can also go to the sequencemenu and delete render files (for this sequence).

Personally, I just trash the contents of the folder and recreate if I need them.

[videope]

Thanks Exactimage.  I see them now.

But tell me, what happens if I trash them all?  Does that mean I have to render the projects all over again?

Do these files have a long-time purpose or are they just a nice thing to have while working on the project?

You say you would recreate them if needed.  Is that because if one deletes them the project will become unrendered?

[Steven L. Gotz]

Exactly. Delete them and you have to render again.

Personally, I keep all of my render files on a special disk dedicated to temporary files of all kinds. When I finish a project, I erase everything on the drive. No sense in saving render files.

In fact, if I have rendered, and made changes and rendered and made changes often enough, I sometime delete all of the render files just before I leave for a while, or stop for  meal, and then let them rerender while I am gone. That way I only have the files I actually need.

[WebTechMiami_com]

Personally, I keep all of my render files on a special disk dedicated to temporary files of all kinds.

Hello Steven,

How do you do this?  I have two external drives and my computer.  My computer to run the programs, a drive for source media and I want to use the other as you specified, for render files.

-Thank You,

Rene

[Steven L. Gotz]

Rene,

I have seven physical hard drives in my desktop. One is the SSD I use for WIndows. The second is a clone of the first with a copy of Creative Cloud one version older in case a problem comes up. I don't keep it mounted.

I have one 1TB drive for my main storage for things like "My Documents" which I also use for my applications (like Creative Cloud and Microsoft Office)

I have two 2TB drives in a RAID0 (for speed) that I use for my media (video files, music, images, etc).

And finally, I have two 2TB drives in a RAID0 that I use for my cache and render files as well as for anything else that I consider to be temporary. If things started to slow down, or I had a major project to work on, I could delete everything on that set of drives, defrag them, and have a perfectly clean drive that would give me fast access to cache.

The only drives I need to back up are my media and main storage drives. I already have a clone of Windows, and there is no need to back up the temporary stuff.

[ExactImage]

videope wrote:

You say you would recreate them if needed.  Is that because if one deletes them the project will become unrendered?

For the most part, we do not need to render the sequences because Pr is so good at playing undrednered sequences - right up until we add things like Neat Video, and even then Pr will play 1/4 res in real time

So, we tend to render only if we have lots of non-real time effects applied and need to watch through in real time without exporting.

I specifically delete all the render files prior to archiving because they can easily be recreated if needed, assuming the project is ever restored.

[Jacob Barkey]

Do you know how to get them to reinstall into a project that you just moved?

For instance, I just renamed my drive for internal purposes and now my render files won't link up to my media. I have relinked my footage to the new drive name, but the render files don't automatically reappear.

[Jim_Simon]

PP will ask you where preview files are when you open the project and it can't find them.  If you didn't specify this when asked, and you then later saved the project, then you will not be asked again and will have to rerender.

[Jacob Barkey]

Thanks Jim.

[SlowmoENT]

Same problem here, every time I load up my PP project it can't locate the rendered files. I then go to locate them in the preview files but their not there. I open the project and some of the footage is still not located even though I've located them and the link media is greyed out. 

[Kai5D82]

Where can I find that file?

[All_Reel_Images__LLC]

Also, would like to jump in and state that I am unable to update Premiere Pro to it's latest version from 2015. After many times trying to update a warning appears similar to this: DYNAMIC LINK IS MISSING. It's not as if I can call support to resolve this matter. Going online to seek assistance doesn't help either. if anyone has a remedy, I'd be most appreciative......

[Johnking06]

Hello pls wia can I find the sequence render folder on Mac????