One of the most frustrating aspects of video editing is running into lag while you are creating your video inside Premiere Pro. Timeline lag and a slow editing experience can really hinder your ability to finish video editing projects on time and to say the least… it’s just really frustrating to deal with.
With that being said, after editing for some time now, I’ve learned some shortcuts and tricks that I use to make Premiere Pro run faster to minimize timeline lag. In this post I’ll go over 10 ways that you can make Premiere Pro run faster. Let’s dive in!
Update Premiere Pro
Premiere Pro is always evolving and Adobe is always improving it and coming out with new software versions. Specifically in the latest 2024 version of Premiere Pro, Adobe redid how they render and display the timeline controls. If you update to the 2024 version, you’ll notice that timeline playback and the UI interface is a lot quicker and more responsive.
If you want to learn more about the science and what went into this update, Colin at VideoRevealed made a great video covering this new update to Premiere Pro. I’ll link it down below if you’d like to learn more. He also makes other great content about Premiere Pro. I highly recommend checking out his YouTube channel!
So I’d first recommend updating to Premiere Pro 2024. But let’s take a look at some other practical ways that you can make Premiere Pro run faster.
Increase Allocated Memory
When editing inside Premiere Pro, Premiere relies on memory / RAM to playback your footage in your timeline. One way you can speed up your timeline playback is to increase the amount of allocated RAM to Premiere Pro and limit it for other applications on your computer.
To do this go up to your Premiere Pro preference settings and go to Memory. Then next to “RAM reserved for other applications”, change this value to be lower. This will dedicate more RAM for Premiere Pro.
In addition to doing this, you can also take this a step further by quitting any open applications that you may not be using when you’re editing in Premiere Pro. For example, if you have Photoshop open in the background you may notice that Premiere Pro is still running slow because Photoshop in the background is still using some memory.
Work On A Fast Hard Drive
One of the things that can dramatically improve your video editing experience is the hard drive that you are editing your project on. I recommend editing either on your computer itself if you have enough storage space, or a very fast external hard drive.
I edit on a SSD (Solid State Drive) external hard drive, specifically a SamSung T5. This has very fast read and write seeds so Premiere Pro can read the footage a lot faster. If you work on a slower hard drive, you’ll notice that Premiere Pro may run slower because it’s taking a longer time to read your footage and project assets.
The hard drives to avoid using are HDD (Hard Disk Drive). These types of drives have larger storage space capacities, but their read and write speeds are often way slower. You might be wondering, how do I know if I am editing on a slow hard drive? There is a way that you can test your hard drive speed for video footage.
You can use the free Blackmagic Design Speed Test App to test your editing hard drive and see if it’s too slow to read your specific footage. There are others out there as well so that you can see if your hard drive is too slow.
Check Media Cache
Another thing that might be slowing down your Premiere Pro project is your media cache. I recommend cleaning your media cache either after a certain amount of days or after it has built up to a certain amount of space. Cleaning it often will help Premiere Pro run faster.
To clean your media cache go to your Premiere Pro preferences and click on Media Cache. There is a delete button at the top and near the bottom you can setup Media Cache Management to automatically delete it.
And similar to the previous tip, I’d also double check and make sure your media cache files are being saved on a fast hard drive. This will allow Premiere Pro to read these files quicker.
Change Playback Resolution
Another option you can adjust is the playback resolution inside your Premiere Pro program panel. When you click the dropdown menu next to “Full” you can change it to a lower value such at 1/4 and this will play the video back in 1/4 of the resolution.
This can temporarily make editing and playback smoother in Premiere Pro. This also doesn’t effect your video when you go to export your final video. So you can choose to always lower this value if you wish. Just know that you are looking at it in a lower resolution.
Mute Global FX
Another option you have in the program panel is to toggle the Global FX Mute button. This will mute all effects applied to your clips in the timeline. If you don’t see this button in your button tools panel, click on the plus bottom at the far right hand side and drag in the Global FX Mute button to your button tools panel.
This is helpful if you have a color grade or are using very computer intensive effects on your clips. I typically use this button if I want to preview and playback my footage in Premiere Pro just to see how my edit looks without any effects applied. And then when I go to export, I’ll uncheck the box.
Use Proxies
Sometimes certain video codecs are more difficult for Premiere Pro to playback than others. If you are working with either H.264 or H.265 codecs, I highly recommend creating proxies in your Premiere Pro project. You may also consider making proxies if you shoot in very high resolutions such as 4K, 8K and above.
Proxies, in layman’s terms, are smaller resolution versions of your video clips in a video codec that is more readable by Premiere Pro. Using Proxies will help make playback and scrubbing your footage a lot smoother.
To create proxies for your video clips, select them in your project panel, right click on them, and then go to Proxy > Create Proxies. For the Format, I recommend QuickTime and for the preset I recommend ProRes Low Resolution Proxy. Once you click okay, Adobe Media Encoder will open and start to render out the proxies.
To turn on proxies inside Premiere Pro, go to the program panel and find the Toggle Proxies button. Once enabled, you’ll be able to edit a lot smoother with the proxies. You don’t need to turn the button off when you go to export your video as Premiere Pro knows to read your original footage on export.
If you want to learn more on the specifics of proxies and why I use them and when I use them, check out my live stream below where I talk all about proxies.
GPU Acceleration Renderer
Depending on your computer you may have an additional setting to adjust when it comes to video rendering and playback. If you go to File > Project Settings > General, you’ll notice next to renderer you have a few options.
If “GPU Acceleration” is available, I’d recommend choosing it rather than the “Software Only” option. This will make Premiere Pro use the GPU more for rendering and playback. Depending how strong your computer’s GPU is, you may notice a significant difference when this option is selected.
GPU Accelerated Effects
Similar to the last tip, there are also GPU accelerated effects. These effects will render a lot quicker than effects that aren’t GPU accelerated. You can even filter these effects by clicking the button near the top of the Effects panel.
Using these effects opposed to others will make editing inside Premiere Pro a lot quicker. And if you use an effect that isn’t GPU accelerated, you’ll notice that it takes a lot longer to render out.
Upgrade Your Computer
My last tip to consider is to upgrade your computer. If all these tips above haven’t worked for you, I’d look into upgrading your system. Depending on your computer build you may be able to buy more RAM or get a stronger GPU.
I’d recommend checking your Activity Monitor and see which category is being taxed the most. Focus on the trouble areas when you are considering upgrading. In general you want to consider the CPU cores and speed, GPU amount and cores, and Memory / RAM amount.
I hope that these tips have helped you speed up your editing inside Premiere Pro. Your computer is only one part when it comes to video editing. If you are looking for ways to also improve as a video editor, consider reading my other blog where I go over the Top 10 Editing Tricks That Every Editor Should Know. You can learn a lot of valuable tips there. Thank you so much for reading!