Fastest way to restore Premiere Pro workspaces
By Suzie Cray · Originally published · Updated
Did you save over Premiere's default workspaces and need them back fast? Here is how to reset your workspaces to factory default without losing the personalised ones you built.
Updated for current versions of Premiere. The original 2019 version of this article sent you to the wrong folder for anything recent. Adobe moved the Layouts folder inside a per-user profile folder, and added an automatic backup that makes recovering your own workspaces far less painful than it used to be. Both are corrected below.
Reset the factory workspaces
- Close Premiere. Do not skip this. Premiere rewrites these files on quit and will undo your work.
- Find the Layouts folder. It lives inside your user Documents folder:
Mac: /Users/<you>/Documents/Adobe/Premiere Pro/<version>/Profile-<you>/LayoutsWindows: \Users\<you>\Documents\Adobe\Premiere Pro\<version>\Profile-<you>\Layouts
TheProfile-<username>level is the part that did not exist when this article was first written. If you cannot find Layouts, that is almost certainly why. - Rename the folder to
Layouts_old. Renaming rather than deleting is the whole trick: your custom workspaces are still in there. - Launch Premiere and create a new project. Premiere rebuilds the Layouts folder and restores every factory default workspace.
Get your own workspaces back
The factory workspaces are back, but your custom ones are not. There are two ways to recover them, and the first one is much easier.
The easy way: LayoutsBackup
Premiere now keeps a LayoutsBackup folder alongside Layouts, in the
same Profile folder. Close Premiere, copy the workspace file you want out of
LayoutsBackup and into Layouts, then restart. This did not exist in
2019, which is why the original article did it the hard way.
The manual way, if the backup does not have it
- Open the
UserWorkspacefiles inside your renamedLayouts_oldfolder in a plain text editor. - Search each file for the workspace name you gave it. That tells you which numbered file is the one you want.
- Close Premiere, copy that
UserWorkspace(X).xmlinto the newLayoutsfolder, and restart.
A note on versions
The version number in that path changes with each release, and if you have had Premiere installed for a while you will see several version folders sitting side by side. Make sure you are working inside the one matching the version you actually launch. Everything above applies to current releases; the folder structure has been stable since Adobe introduced the profile level.
Sources, so you can check the current paths yourself: Adobe on changing, creating and resetting workspaces and the Adobe community FAQ on workspace issues.