5 Helpful Tips You Never Knew in Premiere Pro CC

Premiere Pro 02/01/2019 4 min read

Adobe Premiere Pro has grown to be a pretty comprehensive and respected video editing program. So comprehensive, in fact, that the average user probably only knows half of what it can do!

This means that there are most likely some helpful things that you didn’t know you could do in it that could make your editing process a little easier. Today, we’re going to look at five of these lesser-known tips for editing in Adobe Premiere Pro CC.

Learn 5 Premiere Pro Editing Tips 

1. Master Clip Effects 

If you’re like most video editors, you chop little bits out of your main clips to add to your timeline. Sometimes, you end up using a few different bits out of the same file in various places on your main video. What usually happens then is that you make changes in each separate piece on your timeline. 

But here’s the beauty of Master Clip Effects. You can make changes to the full original media clip, and when you drag and drop a clip out of it onto your timeline, the changes are applied immediately. This is a huge time saver, as it means that you really only have to edit the original file once instead of making multiple little edits on bits of pieces of the same file! 

Simply double-click on your video file in the Project Manager and select Master Effects. Now make your changes like you normally would, and the changes will be applied across your project, to whichever clips come from that file. Quick and easy! 

2. Reserved RAM 

If you’ve ever struggled with your computer lagging while you’re editing, this could be a very helpful tip. It’s perhaps the easiest place to start trying to address a bottleneck in your Premiere Pro workflow. If your computer just isn’t keeping up, try telling it to reserve more RAM for Premiere Pro. The process is simple: 

  1. Under Edit, go to Preferences
  2. Scroll down to Memory. You’ll see a set of numbers at the top here. The one in blue that says RAM reserved for other applications is the one you want to focus on. 
  3. Drop this number as low as you can. This frees up the maximum amount of RAM that Premiere has access to. 

This may not solve all your worries, but it can help quite a bit. It’s also helpful when it comes to figuring out if RAM is or isn’t the problem if your computer lags, and can help you find out the real problem! 

3. Target Tracks 

If you’re big on keyboard shortcuts, using the period or comma keys can help you quickly insert a clip wherever your playhead is at. This is great, but have you ever wondered why it always lands on Track 1? This can get annoying but can also become a problem if you accidentally end up chopping off footage that’s already there! 

  1. Have a look at the Track Names to the left of your timeline.  
  2. You’ll see two little blocks to the left of V1 and A1, with the same names (next to the lock icon). 
  3. Simply click on any track in the same location as these blocks, and they’ll move there. 
  4. This means that the layer now becomes the default for clips to land on! 

Now you can add clips without worrying about overwriting other clips that are already there. It’s a good idea to set your target layer a few above the ones you’re using to set it apart and make it easy to find. 

4. Favorite Text 

This handy little tip is specific to CC 2018. There is a huge variety of fonts you can select from in Premiere Pro, but there are probably less than 10 that you consistently go back to. It can be super helpful to pinpoint your favorites, so instead of scrolling through a list of all the fonts you don’t want to use, you have all your favorites available at the click of a button. 

Click on the little star to the left of the font name to add it to your favorites, and click on the star at the top of the font list to show only the fonts you have starred. How easy is that? 

5. Star (Asterisk) Symbol 

This tip doesn’t really give you any more flexibility in your work, but it’s a simple and useful way to see if the work you’ve done is safe or not. If you look up at the top of your Premiere window where your project’s title is, you will likely see a little asterisk (*). This is a reminder that you have work done in your project that’s not currently saved. 

You may think this doesn’t really make a difference to your workflow, until you know about it! You may be surprised how often you look up to see if it’s there or not. For example, if your computer freezes, you can quickly look up and see if the work you’ve done up until that point is safe or not. No star, no problem. Rest easy.


Whether you’re new to this or a seasoned video editor, there are always little Premiere Pro CC tips and tricks you probably never knew about that are worth learning. You may be surprised how quick and easy these are and how much of a difference they can make to your editing process if you start to use them regularly. Give these a try in your future edits and let us know in the comments how much you like them!