Did your Premiere project just crash? Are you looking to recover some lost work? Premiere’s Auto-Save is about to become your best friend!
Locate the Auto-Save Folder
Premiere stores an auto-save folder for each individual project. This folder is typically located next to your project file, alongside the Audio Previews and Video Previews folders.
Locate the Most Recent Auto-Save
Once you open the Auto-Save folder, you should see 20+ saved projects. They should be organized by date and time. Open up the most recent project in Premiere and resave the project into a different location. It is important that you resave the project into a different folder so that it does not get overwritten.
There you have it! You may not have managed to save everything, but at least you saved progress from 15 minutes ago or less!
How to Prepare for Future Crashes
I cannot stress this enough. Save. More. Often. But as a safety net, you can adjust the Auto-Save preferences so that it saves more frequently. Under Premiere Pro -> Preferences -> Auto Save, you can adjust how often Premiere auto-saves, as well as the Maximum Project versions it can hold before it starts overwriting. I like to keep my settings at:
Automatically Save Every: 5 Minutes
Maximum Project Versions: 30
Yes, it takes up more space, but it will sure save your butt if Premiere crashes again. For a more detailed explanation, watch the video below.