Faster Saving Times using a Hidden Premiere Pro Feature

If you’re a video editor who frequently works with Adobe Premiere Pro, you’ve probably experienced long saving times when working with larger project files. Especially when the project file gets too big, such as when it contains analysis data created by third-party plugins like the Warp Stabilizer effect, the Morph Cut effect, or other similar plugins this often occurs.

Luckily, Premiere Pro has a secret feature that can speed up the saving process significantly.

The reason why saving Premiere Pro projects takes so long is that the software compresses the project file every time you save it. This compression process is not very efficient as it only utilizes one core of the CPU. Depending on the content of your project, the compression can reduce the file size by 30-50%. However, as mentioned earlier, the compression process needs to run again each time you save or open the project, leading to longer saving times. For very big projects it can take more than 10 minutes to save the project. 

The good news is that by disabling the compression, you can speed up your saving time significantly. But keep in mind that this feature will increase your project file size slightly, which shouldn’t be a problem for most projects as for most Editors value time much more valuable than a few megabytes less on the hard drive.

Project Compression

You should notice a significant improvement in your saving time after following these steps, especially when working with larger projects. Disabling the compression process won’t affect your workflow or the quality of your final video output.

Disabling the project compression feature doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to compress your project file later on or enable the compression feature again. By using this technique, you can improve both the regular saving and auto saving processes. Furthermore, you won’t experience any disruption to your workflow, especially during auto-saving.

If you ever want to re-enable the compression process, follow the same steps mentioned above, but instead of unchecking the checkbox next to BE.CompressProjects, check it to set it to true again. Remember to enable the compression process again if you ever need to reduce your project file size.

This hidden feature is not well-known, and some editors might not be aware of its existence. If you know other Premiere Pro editors who are also experiencing slow saving times due to large project files, be sure to pass on this trick to them. Sharing this information can make their editing experience more efficient and enjoyable.

Further Optimizations

To further optimize your workflow, you can also use automation tools like the ExtendScript Developer Tools for Premiere Pro. Using this tool you can temporarily disable the compression feature during auto-saving and then re-enable it when manually saving your project. This method ensures that auto-saving won’t slow down your editing, while also making it easier to manage large project files and share them with customers. Additionally, your final project files will always be compressed.