Why your Premiere bins don't help you next year
Bins, markers and sub-clips are project-scoped: they live inside the .prproj or .drp you were working in, so the logging you did last spring is only reachable by opening last spring's project. The work was real - it just is not where you will be looking.
Published September 10, 2026 · Field notes
Nothing is wrong with your logging. The problem is where it is kept: bins, sub-clips, selects and sequence markers are stored inside the project file, so they are reachable only by opening that project. Next year you are in a new project, looking at the same media, and none of it is there.
What lives where
| Artifact | Stored in | Survives into a new project? |
|---|---|---|
| Bins and folder structure | Project file | No |
| Sub-clips | Project file | No |
| Sequence markers | Project file | No |
| Labels and colours | Project file | No |
| Clip markers | Project file, or XMP if enabled | Only with XMP writing on |
| File and folder names | The filesystem | Yes |
| Camera metadata | Inside the media file | Yes |
| Exported selects | Real files on disk | Yes |
The pattern is clear enough to state as a rule: anything the application owns disappears with the application's project; anything the filesystem or the media file owns persists. Everything in the first group was real work, and it is one file-open away from being invisible.
The XMP exception, which is worth turning on
Premiere Pro can write clip markers out of the project and into the media, under Preferences, Media. With "Write clip markers to XMP" enabled, markers are saved with the media file; with it off, they stay in the project file. For formats that cannot hold embedded XMP, Premiere writes a sidecar .xmp file next to the clip with the same base name.
That single preference is the difference between logging you can use again and logging you cannot. It has a cost worth knowing: writing into media files or creating sidecars touches your originals folder, which conflicts with a checksum-verified archive policy, and sidecars have to be copied along with the media or they are lost. Choose deliberately, then be consistent.
Why "just search the project" is not the answer either
Both major NLEs now have content search - Premiere's Media Intelligence and Resolve 21's IntelliSearch - and both are genuinely good. Both are also scoped to the project's media pool. Adobe's documentation is explicit that Media Intelligence searches media inside your project; Resolve searches clips you have imported and analysed. Neither one answers "do I have a shot like this anywhere on my drives", because neither one is looking at your drives.
That is the gap. Details on both, with dates and versions, are in can Premiere Pro find a clip without the filename and can DaVinci Resolve search your footage.
Three things to do at the end of a job
- Export your markers. Both Premiere and Resolve can export a marker list; a CSV in the project folder outlives the project file and is readable by anything.
- Render your selects as files. A selects reel or a folder of exported selects is media, not a bin, so it survives. This is also the fastest thing to re-index later.
- Write the shoot-notes file, if you did not do it on the day. Two paragraphs of plain text, in the shoot folder.
What a project-independent layer has to store
To be useful next year, a layer has to be keyed by file rather than by project, has to be populated without per-clip typing, and must not modify the media. Reelary is one implementation of that: it indexes folders, keeps a single library across all of them, and searches by what is in the picture regardless of which project the clip was once part of. It does not open your project files and does not know about your bins - it works one level below them, on the media itself.
When your NLE is the better place for this.
If everything you need is inside a project you still have open, use the NLE's own search - it is faster, it knows your sub-clips, and it needs no second index. If your logging is about takes rather than shots ("take 4, the one where the line landed"), that is per-project judgment, and bins plus markers are the right home for it. And if you work in a Premiere Production or a shared Resolve database with a team, keep the logging where the team can see it, not in a single-user index on one workstation.
Questions people ask about this
Do Premiere bins and markers carry over to a new project?
Not by default. Bins, sub-clips, sequence markers and selects live inside the project file, so a new project starts empty even though the media is the same. Clip markers are the exception: Premiere can write them to XMP so they travel with the media, and that option is off in some setups.
How do I make my logging survive across projects?
Push it out of the project file into something the media carries or something that indexes the media. In Premiere, turn on writing clip markers to XMP in Preferences > Media so markers are stored with the file or in a sidecar. Export marker lists to CSV at the end of a job. Keep selects as real files in a selects folder rather than only as bins.
Is a Premiere Production or a Resolve database the same as a media library?
No. Productions and Resolve project databases organise projects, not media - they let several projects share assets and settings, but the search scope is still the project you have open. A media library is indexed by file and outlives every project that references it.