The best file structure for video editing

Mar 31

What is the best file structure (or project folder setup) for video editing in Adobe Premiere Pro (or any other software)? I have a setup that I’ve followed for many years and it all comes down to 4 simple folders.

The best file structure for video editing

The inspiration came from a combination of resources, particularly from the “PARA method” by Tiago Forte and “Getting Things Done” by David Allen.

The “PARA method” stands for “Projects”, “Areas”, “Resources”, “Archive” and that is the top folder structure for my external harddrive, but my “video project folder” is slightly different.

It also consists of four folders but the folder names are “01_Footage”, “02_Projects”, “03_Assets”, and “04_Export”. The purpose of the numbers in the beginning are just to keep the folders in the right order and you will soon understand why.

You start by placing your footage in the top folder (and that is all the new footage for that specific project). Your project files go into the second folder (like the video project file but also the thumbnail document). Your recurring assets are placed in the third one (like sound effects, graphics, still images etc).
Finally, in the fourth folder, you place the final exported video, the finished script file, and the thumbnail.

This way, you work your way down, from the top to the bottom, and you can keep organizing your files as much as you want by creating new subfolders but your four main folders are always the same.

By organizing your project this way, you won’t mix up your exports with your footage and when you want to create a new project, you can just copy the whole project folder and empty folder 1 and 4 to copy your project files and your assets from the previous project.

I hope this was helpful, let me know in the comment section below if you want this explained in more detail.

🎞 Watch the tutorial here!

Don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel for hundreds of short tutorials just like this one.

Thanks for reading!