Don't open multiple projects at once: Premiere 2018

[larryc53227652]

Just updated Premiere and I'm seeing a feature that I really disliked about FCP - the fact that you open multiple projects at the same time.  I do find this occasionally useful, but not on a daily basis and really it ends up being more confusing and I can't always tell when I've completely closed an old project unless I quit and restart Premiere.

Is there a setting so that I only open one project at a time like the way it used to be?

The way it used to be was perfect for me, but now it would require multiple steps to either start a new project or open a different project if I already have one open.

[Jaffo]

How do we "heavily request" that there be an option to turn this feature off?  I've been working in Premiere for almost a decade, and now you change something like this that completely screws up workflow? I understand that some people may need to operate in multiple projects at once... but you need to realize that there are a hell of a lot of people who DON'T!

Being that it has already been 2 years since this issue was brought up, I can assume that Adobe has absolutely no interest in giving us the "toggle off" option that has been suggested/requested. And yes, I know I'm a little late to this party, but we had to delay upgrading our CC until we had new computers that could handle the MacOS required for upgrade.

[Peru Bob]

Jaffo  wrote

How do we "heavily request" that there be an option to turn this feature off?

Premiere Pro: Hot (4087 ideas) – Adobe video & audio apps

and

Feature Request/Bug Report Form

[decker1222]

Some people seem to like this option to have multiple projects opened, and I was personally excited for it in CC2018. Then I tried using it for a week and it was an unmitigated disaster. It's just not handled very well. Bins become a disaster, the grey color scheme means you have to eagle eye everything to make sure you're in the right place all the time, switching Timelines don't intelligently switch the rest of your project, creating a Nested clip in a Timeline puts it in the bin of whatever bin you have open and not necessarily the bin that belongs to the Timeline's project, creating Subclips behaved nearly the same way (putting the resulting clip in the wrong bin unless you preselected it all ahead of time)... it's just a poorly thought out mess.

Heaven forbid you're trolling around a folder of projects looking for a particular edited piece of footage - opening several projects at once will make all of the tabs smaller and smaller and smaller making them all useless, and take up a ton of resources. It's hilarious at how bad it is.

Every single editor I work with put it through their own independent testing and all came to the conclusion that while it's a good idea, it's a terrible implementation. The look in their eyes after I told them I had a workaround was gold!

The real answer to this Multiple Projects problem is to have difference INSTANCES of Adobe Premiere able to run at once, like when you open up multiple Excel or Word documents. That way they're all separate and you have to make specific motions to drag/drop/copy between them all.

[excited_Genie16B8]

The real answer to this Multiple Projects problem is to have difference INSTANCES of Adobe Premiere able to run at once

I think that would introduce more problems than it solves, especially since this 'problem' is very easily solved simply by closing the open project first.

A better solution would be some type of color coding for Project, Bin and Sequence tabs, allowing for easy visual association of projects.

[BrianDavison]

Completely agreed. I've been dying for color coding since before multiple projects were even a thing. How nice would it be if our sequence label colors were reflected in the sequence tabs?

[excited_Genie16B8]

I can't always tell when I've completely closed an old project

Same as it's always been.

File>Close Project.

[jstrawn]

Jim_Simon  wrote

File>Close Project.

You can also go to the Project Panel tab for the project you want to close and choose "Close Project". I prefer this method because then I know what I am closing from the project panel instead of having to make sure I'm actually IN the right project before I close it.

[lsheldonRS]

Is there any way to open a new project from within Premiere without having to shut down Premiere and re-boot it?

[excited_Genie16B8]

Yes, same as it's always been.

File>Open Project...

[lsheldonRS]

Thanks Jim Simon,

When I do this it opens up a project within a project. I meant how do I open a new project without importing one project into another (and I know that technically I have two projects open, but since they merge in my workspace, it's not what I want).

This is why I mentioned shutting down Premiere and re-booting. I used to go to File>Open Project and it would save and quit the project I was in. I merely want to save this precious time (plus Premiere crashes a lot more when I shut it down and re-open).

But thanks for trying to help.

[Meg The Dog]

Close the first project before opening the 2nd one.

File > Close Project  (Shift + Command (Control) + W).

MtD

[lsheldonRS]

Thanks Meg,

Now I feel stupid. I never had a need to close a project before as I was either opening another one with 'Open Project', or quitting Premiere to leave work.

[Trent Happel]

MtD beat me to it. FYI, if you want to close all Projects, then there is also File menu > Close All Projects (no default shortcut, but you can assign one)

[Nate Langer]

not ture

[larryc53227652]

clearly didn't read my whole question and decided to make a rude, smart-ass answer instead.

Not helpful and very troll-like.

Looks like it's just an update to open all projects instead of closing the previous and opening the next - this is a bad update feature especially since there's no option to turn off this feature.

[flitetestjeremy]

I love the ability to have multiple projects open at once but like others are saying the user interface of how it is implemented is really cumbersome. I wish you could choose to have a new project open independently, closing the previous project as a default and then when you want to have multiple projects open, that is an option you can select.  Having to reconfigure my layout each time is a pain. Having to either shut down premiere and re-open (I find this the easiest way to avoid having to reconfigure) or close the previous project before opening a new one is a ridiculous bug to this feature.

[MIAMI777]

At first I thought this was a bug. Then I read was a new feature. Not all Premiere users have a need for multiple projects opened at once. There are different levels of skills. I work alone and find no use in having many projects opened at once althou Im sure this option is there for a very useful reason and many are benefiting from it. An option to disable should ve been included.

[R Neil Haugen]

Very easy to avoid. Just close your projects. Open only one at a time.

Neil

[MIAMI777]

you can no longer open projects using "open recents" this will open a project withing a project and start CONFORMING audio. Very bad, in my opinion. Just close Premiere and open the project you need.

[R Neil Haugen]

Faster to close a project than closing the program and restarting.

Neil

[excited_Genie16B8]

Recently opened projects will be available on the Start screen, same as they have always been.

[Heathenlamb]

Can you PLEASE implement an option to turn this off. It is really annoying and implemented terribly. I have used Premiere for as long as I can remember and this is the single worst "improvement" I have ever encountered. Using multiple monitors turn into a mess with this. I used to simply be able to open new or recent projects and the other would close automatically. This is the functionality I prefer. So once again, PLEASE give me the option to turn this off.

[R Neil Haugen]

You need to use the bug/feature report form to get that to the project managers. On my phone I can't easily add the link, but it is there on the Overview page for this forum on the right side, I think.

Neil

[djrumbu]

that annoys me as hell also, i can see where this is helpful but again, an option to disable multiple project opening stuff, would be fantastic. haven't had any issues yet with work spaces because i only use 1 and only my own projects, but that would be super frustrating. A simple toggle option for this would be great, and i guess someone already asked for that.

[bejord]

What would be great is a dialog that comes up, similar to what comes up when you try to exit w/ an un-saved project.

So if you try to open another project w/ one open already, it would ask "Do you want to open multiple projects?" with help text or link showing the pro's and con's, AND a checkbox to "Not ask me again."

This way the user learns about what's happening and can change the setting as they like. Then an additional setting in Preferences to enable/disable, and everyone would be happy, no matter what their workflow.