Open Premiere Project in Older Version - Downgrade Project Version

Sven Immelmann

Oct '23 • 💬 Discussion

Premiere Pro users sometimes want to open their project in an earlier version.

Here’s the quickest way to open your projects in an earlier version.

(Note: I don't own this website, just been using it for a few years for downgrading)

This is the easiest method I have found for downgrading PP project versions

The manual way can be a little complicated and intimidating for some users, so just use this website instead!

http://joshcluderay.com/downgrade-premiere-project-converter/

A Premiere project (.prproj) file is basically an xml file wrapped up in gzip compression. One of the nodes contains a version number corresponding to the version of Premiere which created it.

Premiere checks this when opening a file and refuses to open anything with a lower version number, even when the project is basically compatible: "This project was saved in a newer version of Adobe Premiere Pro and cannot be opened in this version."

This tool simply changes that version number to '1' and creates a gzip compressed file which Premiere can read.

You can perform the same process yourself manually, as described here, however this tool makes it simple.

Because this is a cheat, some filters and effects may be lost when converting

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