The Best FOLDER STRUCTURE for Video Editing (Premiere Pro & Others)

Sometimes it helps just to get a peak at how other people do mundane things. That's what I'm hoping to give you here!
In this video, I'll show you the best folder structure for video editing to help you get your video production file management under control during post production. It's hard to know how to manage files when video editing or how to pick a folder structure for video, but with these folder structure best practices you'll take your video post production to a whole new level. This really is the best way to organize video files and projects.
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[@plannetangel3394]

In the short amount of time since I’ve subscribed to your channel, I’ve genuinely enjoyed learning from what you offer to teach, thank you for being straight to the point and not being boring

[@RealJamesArcher]

Thanks for the feedback! It means a lot.

[@lowlowseesee]

this helped me tremendous. my second phase of organization. i was lost before this vid and after watching it ONCE I was at peace and super organized and also finished some projects for my first potential client. much thanks, SUBBED!

[@ashleighwaters3261]

so helpful thank you!!

[@harrisongould9460]

Some how I found you...file organization is like a 'club'. If you're not organized, you've lost your compass while flying and that ain't good. It's my first day with Premier Pro and I'm just shy of 70. As for photography...I started in the 70's. A nice circle I'd say. Thanks for the video...I do the same with my Lightroom jobs...everything is in the same 'organized' folder.

[@RealJamesArcher]

Glad you're getting started with video!

[@TheHiFiMechanik]

Hi James, I've just started my first KZbin channel (quite my job to go full time). and discovered my file management was all wrong! So I created a better file structure for all my future projects...you just saved me hours of time! Thanks sooo much for this valuable tutorial😃 Cheers Grant

[@RealJamesArcher]

Glad to hear it, Grant. Good luck with your channel!!

[@Aj_Bamf]

First time in a while I've thought to myself "Wow that was incredible, I should check out this guy's other stuff."

[@SlackerStuff]

yesssss. Love organizing by that date convention. Makes it super helpful.

[@westfield90]

Question if I use a same background video loop in all of my projects which is about a 1GB. Copying that file into every project will eat up so much of my hard disk space. So what do you do about that scenario?

[@RandumbTech]

You are speaking my language! I am so tired of having missing files in my projects because I was too lazy to save the media in the right spot. Thx for the quick tutorial!

[@RealJamesArcher]

Glad to hear it! It's been a huge help to me!

[@fernandoperedia182]

Well explained and straight to the point. Thank you

[@clarkcunningham4207]

This is premium content. Concise and descriptive. Subbed

[@nextlevelcraig]

I thought I was doing well with my organization. Then you hit me with ISO 8601, damn it! That really makes a lot of sense. I guess I know what I am doing today LOL.

[@RealJamesArcher]

This is the way 🙌

[@nextlevelcraig]

@@RealJamesArcher You have spoken. 😂

[@kissmelissakiss]

nice! thank you for sharing that! so simple and smart and just what I needed to start my video creation, organized from the start!

[@lynuslyneburg]

Thanks dude, will try your process

[@ianharper6015]

Thank you for a very useful video.

[@davidbaileyrealtor]

Great explanation of how you store your files. I've been trying to figure out a way to keep things organized so I can work on them on my computer and still be able to move them to an external hard drive when completed to free up space. This will definitely keep me from losing files when they are getting moved. As a newbie video editor in premiere pro, my next question after storing files would be how do you color-code or organize the sequence to keep all the files organized? And I have seen pro editors creating sequences inside of sequences that I haven't figured out how to do yet.

[@DongTep]

Thanks bro. Help a lot.

[@byronjohnson8346]

EXELLENT VIDEO

[@pradrev]

Where do you store the processing files that are created by the editing software?

[@EGInspection]

Adobe generates additional files once the project is initiated. Other than the *.prproj file, where do you store the additional files (previews, autosaves, etc) during production, and then after completion of the project it looks like you delete them all. Great video, thank you.

[@RealJamesArcher]

I typically create subfolders for those as well, though autosaves I usually try to keep elsewhere in case of drive failure.

[@joyoffilming9500]

Great video. I am doing exactly the same for my stills and to some extend for videoos, too. Only thing I need to apply for Davinvi Resolve is to create that project file and add it to the folder.

[@mowenurbano4677]

is it sorted by name and in the ascending order?

[@erbartlett]

I've got a good system for projects, but I use a lot of footage from previous projects when working on new ones. Any tips for how to organize a huge amount of projects and all that footage for use as b-roll in future projects? I spend a ton of time looking through old projects to find a shot to use.

[@RealJamesArcher]

I would generally just copy the footage into the new folder so they're not all cross-linked (since they'd otherwise tend to break when you archive things, move them around, etc.)

[@randyrektor]

My biggest takeaway is exporting tiffs for thumbs. I don't know why I've never thought to change it to Tiff over jpeg. Adding that one to the bucket. Thanks!

[@RealJamesArcher]

Yeah! The main reason I did it was for an edit where I needed to use a thumbnail in the video itself, and the color/gamma was messed up in the jpeg, so I switched to the tiff and it worked fine. Just never changed it back 😄

[@randyrektor]

@@RealJamesArcher That's fantastic. It's the little things :)

[@lowlowseesee]

a vid showing the steps instead of talking about it only would be grannnnd, i donate lol. column view and a finder window in the full screen would have been really helpful too and you could have your face in the bottom left corner

[@MrDavinciResolve]

How did you get the little folders beside the name of the file i like that view alot

[@TroyRutter]

So any files you use in multiple videos you have in several folders? ie: If you have a black still frame, and you use it a lot, you copy that same frame to multiple folders?

[@RealJamesArcher]

Yep, that's actually pretty much what I did. Those assets are usually quite small, so I just put that kind of stuff (branding clip, arrows, etc.) into the template folder that I copied each time.

[@buzondemadera]

Awesome! So I got a question: What about when you have a video project that pulls assets from previous footage? (Say, putting together a Reel or something) Do you duplicate that data or do you have a system for that?

[@RealJamesArcher]

That's a good question! In that case, I would probably leave the original footage where it is and just borrow from it, or I would copy the applicable clips together into a single folder and do it that way.

[@SpicyMelons.]

I'm starting to dip my toes into editing and my assets are scattered across multiple hard drives. This was helpful, thank you for sharing 🙏

[@Paul_D.]

Hi James, thank for this. Where do you have PP save you projects? To the same HDD or a different location?

[@mowenurbano4677]

I'd rather save the premiere pro projects in the same folder. So that when you move your files thru different location, premiere pro will not try to search up your lost files.

[@ShavonSmith]

Thank this should make process more easier and efficient

[@zaccomusic]

amazing video want to be friend?