Organizing Adobe folders on your computer – not media WITHIN a project

[Oliver Peters]

You can save your Premiere Pro project anywhere you like. My method of organization is to have a folder for everything related to a specific job. In there, I have subfolders for project files (Premiere Pro, AE), footage, audio (VO, music, SFX), graphics, production documents, and exports. When It’s time to back-up, simply copy that main project folder and you have everything in one place.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Al Bergstein]

I don’t know if that is what the OP is asking, but I agree with you. I put everything in one master folder for the project, including project documentation, billing etc. All original footage, audio, Adobe Pr files, etc. That way I know that when I move it it all goes together.

The OP seemed to be asking about the default locations of the Adobe program files themselves. As I’ve just found out, the media cache is many times put on a separate SSD drive for speed. All on it’s own. We just saw what happened when you stuck it in the same folder as the media, as 11.1 (not 11.1.1.) deleted it and the media for many users.

I just leave it alone on my SSD C drive.

Al

[Moira Elefson]

Thanks guys for your thoughts.

That sounds wise to organize media files on a project basis, but still I do not understand how to organize my SYSTEM as it relates to Adobe apps. Certain files are to be left on the local disk, like “adobe profiles” folders etc. Does anyone have a schematic of how they do their system?

There are “cache files” for example. . . “auto-saves” and “profiles” and “peak files” and “render files” etc etc. I use Adobe apps as tools but definitely am not a computer-lover per se. I just want an elegant way to organize everything.

Thank you very much! Any images you could provide would be even better:)

[Oliver Peters]

“but still I do not understand how to organize my SYSTEM as it relates to Adobe apps. Certain files are to be left on the local disk, like “adobe profiles” folders etc. Does anyone have a schematic of how they do their system?”

Aah, OK. The files under the Premiere Pro preference settings (cache files, pek files, etc.) should go into one of two possible places. Either accept the default (inside your user Library folder) or set up a separate folder on a separate drive for just those files. Project files can go where your media is or to a separate folder, like in your user Documents folder. I usually let the start-up settings (when you create a new project), like capture files, autosave, etc., go to the same location as the media or project files (in my case, the same drive).

Part of the answer depends on how paranoid you get about system failure. For example, if your project file and your auto-save files are all in the same location on an external drive – and that drive dies – you’ve lost everything. If you have your project file and/or the auto-save files are on an internal drive that is routinely back-ed up by something like Time Machine (Mac), then if your external drive dies, you’ve only lost media, but not your edit decisions. (Hopefully, you already have a back-up of this media that you can restore.) In this scenario, if your main computer dies, you’ve got a back-up on the Time Machine drive. Some users also use their DropBox location for this same reason.

Adobe lets you manage this in a total freeform manner. As a ‘best practices’, I would recommend spreading things out to 2 or 3 locations, just depending on how protected you want to be. Those would be: Drive 1 – Project files (this should have regular synced back-ups), Drive 2 – Adobe cache files (in a separate folder, NOT at the root level), and Drive 3 – media.

Does that help?

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

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[Robert Withers]

Thanks for all the posts on this. Where do y’all place preview files? Also in the master project folder? Is speed of access an issue?
Thanks,
Robert

Robert Withers

Independent/personal/avant-garde cinema, New York City

[Moira Elefson]

Oliver,

Thank you for your post. It helped a little, but I really still don’t understand all the various ancillary files/folders that which Adobe puts on your computer. Could you list these, and where you keep them? All the tutorials in the world haven’t answered this question. I’m overwhelmed. Some seem to be inaccessible to me (in the Library folder) and others are easier to locate and manage (auto-saves).

So far, I know there are:
1. Project files
2. Auto-saves
3. (your media)
4. peak files?
5. cache files?

It seems that Adobe automatically puts an “Adobe” folder in your documents folder, which houses your profile, etc. Should I just leave all that be?

thank you!

[Oliver Peters]

I would leave the files from the preference cache settings alone and let them go to the default (set in preferences).

This is inside your user library folder which is normally hidden on Macs. It becomes visible when you hold down the option key and access the Finder’s Go menu. You’ll see Library. You can clean out the Media Cache and Peak Files manually if you like, for old projects. Any that are inadvertently deleted will be rebuilt if there’s an active job that needs them after all.

All of the other file locations can be set at the creation of a new project and those settings are retained until you change them again. Look at the image below. I use a “custom” location, which is a folder on a separate drive. However, to keep things simple, set these to “same as project”, assuming your media and project are on an external drive. Once you get more comfortable, then you can experiment with other locations if you like. The files that Premiere puts in the documents folder are fine.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Moira Elefson]

Thank you for taking the time to show me this Oliver, very kind of you!

[Oliver Peters]

You are most welcome.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com