Where apps hide your files
Premiere Pro writes auto-saves beside your project unless someone changed the setting. Here is how to confirm where yours went, restore from it and avoid losing a day of editing.
Premiere Pro does not keep auto-saves in one global folder. By default it writes them next to the project file, in a subfolder named like this:
<folder containing your .prproj>/Adobe Premiere Pro Auto-Save/So if your project is ~/Movies/Wedding/Wedding.prproj, look in ~/Movies/Wedding/Adobe Premiere Pro Auto-Save/. Adobe's help calls this the Premiere Pro Auto-Save folder; the exact folder name above comes from tutorials and Adobe Community answers, because Adobe's help pages could not be fetched while this was checked. If you do not see it, read the setting from your own copy of the app, as below.
The location is a per-project setting. In Premiere Pro, open File > Project Settings > Scratch Disks and look at the Project Auto Save row. The choices are:
~/Documents/Adobe/Premiere Pro/<version number>/, so confirm the version folder on your Mac.The path shown in that row is the answer. If it names a drive that is not connected, the auto-saves are on that drive, not on your Mac. Adobe Community answers note that scratch disk choices carry over to new projects, so one change can redirect every project made afterwards.
In Finder, use Go > Go to Folder (⇧⌘G) and paste the path. From Terminal, with the quotes kept because of the spaces:
open "/path/to/your/project folder/Adobe Premiere Pro Auto-Save"When the setting is Same as Project, the folder is an ordinary visible folder wherever your project lives, so you can also just open the project's folder in Finder.
Frequency and the number of kept versions are set in Premiere Pro > Settings > Auto Save (called Preferences in older versions). Adobe's current help gives the defaults as a save every five minutes and the twenty most recent versions; much older releases used different numbers, so check yours. Once the limit is reached, the oldest copy is replaced, so the folder does not grow forever. Each file is a full project copy, so a large project with twenty copies takes real space.
Adobe's help also describes a single emergency backup file per project, overwritten at each auto-save and each time you save. It is a separate safety net from the numbered auto-saves.
Each auto-save is a normal .prproj file with a date or counter in its name. The naming differs between versions, so sort the folder by Date Modified instead of trusting the name.
An auto-save does not contain your media. It stores the project: sequences, bins and edits that point to media files. If the media moved, you will relink it when the project opens.
Premiere asks for a name and location when you create a project, so even a crash on a brand-new project normally leaves the Auto-Save folder next to wherever you created it. If you cannot remember where that was, the .prproj files themselves are the thing to find: sort a search for .prproj by date, or look in the Documents fallback above.
Old Auto-Save folders are a common source of forgotten duplicates, especially beside projects you finished long ago. Once a project is archived, the Auto-Save folder beside it can go: move it to the Trash in Finder, not with rm, and keep the final .prproj itself. Do not clear auto-saves for a project still in progress.
Auto-saves are separate from Premiere's media cache, which holds conformed audio and peak files in ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common. The related guide covers that folder.
Every auto-save sits in the same folder tree as the project, so a failed drive takes both. For anything you care about, keep the project on a drive that Time Machine covers, or copy the .prproj to a second location at the end of each session. File > Save As with a dated name before a big restructure gives you a restore point that auto-save will never overwrite.
An empty or missing Auto-Save folder usually means the setting points elsewhere (check Scratch Disks as above), the project was opened from a location Premiere cannot write to, such as a read-only network share, or auto-save was turned off in Settings.
When nobody remembers where Project Auto Save was pointed, the folder name itself is the clue. Once Everywhere has Full Disk Access, which macOS requires for Documents and external drives, the usual homes for projects, typing Auto-Save lists every Premiere Auto-Save folder on the Mac and on drives you have connected before, and .prproj with part of the project's name lists each saved version. ⌘↵ reveals one in Finder. It matches file names only, so it will not tell you what is inside a project.
By default in a subfolder called Adobe Premiere Pro Auto-Save next to your project file. Confirm it under File > Project Settings > Scratch Disks, in the Project Auto Save row.
Open the Auto-Save folder, sort by Date Modified, copy the newest .prproj to a normal folder and open the copy with File > Open Project. Try an older one if it fails.
Adobe's help gives the defaults as twenty versions and a save every five minutes, both adjustable in the Auto Save settings. Premiere replaces the oldest copy once the limit is reached.
Yes. In File > Project Settings > Scratch Disks, change Project Auto Save to Documents or a folder you pick with Browse, or back to Same as Project.
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