In Adobe Premiere Elements, select File > New Project.
Last updated on
Oct 1, 2024
Learn to create and start new projects in Premiere Elements.
Projects
Adobe Premiere Elements creates a project file for every new project that you want to publish or save to work on later. You can also create a project before importing media.
The project file references the media that you add to a project. The types of media could include videos, images, titles, and themes among others.
Project files are small in size. They include title files and references to the source files that you capture or import. Because the project files store references, avoid moving, renaming, or deleting the source files so that Premiere Elements can locate them.
For more information on importing media, see Adding media.
View available project presets and settings
When you create a project, Adobe Premiere Elements automatically adjusts your project settings based on the type of media you import.
To view available project presets and settings:
For more information, see Project settings and presets.
Start a new project
Do one of the following:
From the Home screen, select Video Editor and select New Project.
If Adobe Premiere Elements is open, choose File > New Project.
Enter the name and the location for your project.
Select More > View All Presets to view the presets By Aspect Ratio or By Video Standard.
Note
You cannot view the presets By Aspect Ratio or By Video Standard in Premiere Elements 2025
Note
- Aspect Ratio presets are introduced in Premiere Elements 2022.
- After you change your project settings, you cannot modify them later in Premiere Elements 2024 and previous versions.
If you do not change the project settings, Adobe Premiere Elements uses NTSC Full HD landscape project setting as the default setting.
You can import a clip whose settings do not match the settings of an empty project. Adobe Premiere Elements overwrites the project settings with the settings of your clip when you drop it onto the Expert view timeline. Select Force selected project presets to this project if you do not want Adobe Premiere Elements to change your project settings.
By default, the folder where you save your project also stores rendered previews, conformed audio files and captured audio and video. These large files are saved to your largest, fastest hard drive. To store the files separately from projects, choose Edit > Project Settings > Scratch Disks (Windows) or Adobe Premiere Elements > Project Settings > Scratch Disks (macOS).
Open a project
You can open only one project at a time. To ensure that Adobe Premiere Elements can open an existing project, ensure that both the project file (.PREL) and the source files are accessible on your computer.
Do one of the following:
In the Home screen, select Video Editor or a project from Recent Files. If the project is not listed, select Video Editor to launch Premiere Elements and select File > Open Project.
If Adobe Premiere Elements is open, choose File > Open Project or Open Recent Project; then select the project file and select Open.
In Windows, double‑click the project file.
Note
Adobe Premiere Elements can open projects you created in earlier versions. However, previous versions cannot open projects you create in later versions. If you have multiple versions of Adobe Premiere Elements installed, open a project from within the software. Alternatively, right-click/ctrl-click the file and choose the application.
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