Scans a .prproj file and tells you exactly which media assets are missing, external, or misplaced, before you archive a project or clean up your drives.
You finish a project. Months later you open it and half the media is offline. Somewhere between the Downloads folder, an external drive, and a cleanup pass, files got scattered or deleted. Premiere's built-in relinking helps after things go missing, but this script helps you catch it before.
A .prproj file is a gzip-compressed XML file. This script decompresses it, extracts every media path the project references, then checks each one against your project root folder. It auto-detects the root by walking up from the .prproj and looking for recognisable media subfolders (RAW, Assets, Audio, etc.).
Every file gets sorted into one of four categories:
| Category | Meaning | |
|---|---|---|
| ✅ | Present | File exists inside the project root, you're good |
| External | File exists on disk but lives outside the project root | |
| 🔄 | Wrong place | File is inside the root but Premiere's stored path is stale |
| ❌ | Missing | File cannot be found anywhere on disk |
Results are saved as a printable HTML report (or plain text, or both).
Double-click premiere_media_checker.py (or run it from a terminal). The script will walk you through everything interactively, no arguments needed.
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🎬 Premiere Pro Media Checker
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STEP 1 of 3 - Premiere Pro project file
Drag your .prproj file onto this window and press Enter.
> "D:\Projects\MyFilm\Project\MyFilm.prproj"
✓ Found: D:\Projects\MyFilm\Project\MyFilm.prproj
📁 Auto-detected project root: D:\Projects\MyFilm
Subfolders found: Assets, Audio, Export, Project, RAW
Is this the correct root folder? [Y/n]: y
STEP 2 of 3 - Options
Report format? 1) HTML 2) TXT 3) Both > 1
Report output folder [default: D:\Projects\MyFilm\Project]:
STEP 3 of 3 - Running checks
Found 216 media reference(s).
✅ Present : 204
⚠️ External : 8
🔄 Wrong place : 2
❌ Missing : 2
[HTML] Saved → D:\Projects\MyFilm\Project\premiere_media_checker_MyFilm_20260424.html
Done. 12 file(s) need attention - see the report for details.
Tip: when prompted for a file or folder path, you can drag and drop directly from Windows Explorer onto the terminal window, it will paste the full path automatically.
Requirements: Python 3.10 or later. No third-party packages, only the standard library.
premiere_media_checker recognises the following media extensions:
Video: .mp4 .mov .avi .mkv .mxf .r3d .braw .mts .m2ts .wmv .mpg .mpeg .m4v .webm .flv .3gp
Audio: .mp3 .wav .aac .aif .aiff .flac .ogg .m4a .wma
Image / Graphic: .jpg .jpeg .png .tif .tiff .bmp .psd .ai .eps .gif .dpx .exr .cr2 .nef .arw .dng
After Effects / Motion Graphics: .aep .mogrt
Other: .srt .xml
premiere_media_checker walks up from the .prproj file and stops at the first folder that contains at least one recognisable media subfolder. The names it looks for are:
raw assets audio music sfx graphics photos images footage video b-roll broll motion ae after effects vfx exports export
If none are found within 4 levels, it falls back to two levels above the .prproj. You're always shown what was detected and asked to confirm before anything runs.
Premiere's own internal folders (Adobe Premiere Pro Auto-Save, Adobe Premiere Pro Audio Previews, Media Cache, etc.) are automatically excluded from the file index so they never show up as false matches.
premiere_media_checker is designed around a structure like this:
MyFilm/
├── Project/
│ ├── MyFilm.prproj ← point the script here
│ ├── Adobe Premiere Pro Auto-Save/
│ └── Adobe Premiere Pro Audio Previews/
├── RAW/ ← camera originals
├── Assets/ ← logos, music, SFX, motion graphics
├── Audio/ ← recorded audio, VO
└── Export/ ← deliverables (ignored)
Any structure where the .prproj lives one level below the project root will work. The subfolder names (RAW, Assets, etc.) can be anything, premiere_media_checker searches the entire root tree.
The HTML report opens in any browser and is print-ready. Each section includes:
- File name with a subfolder badge (e.g.
[RAW],[Assets]) showing where inside the project root the file lives - Full path as stored in the project file
- For Wrong place entries: the stale stored path alongside the actual location found, ready to hand off to Premiere's Link Media dialog
- For External entries: the current location so you know exactly where to copy from
- For Missing entries: the last known path, useful for checking backups
| Category | What to do |
|---|---|
| Copy the file into your project root, then use File → Link Media in Premiere to repoint | |
| 🔄 Wrong place | The file is already inside your root, just use Link Media to repoint Premiere to the new location |
| ❌ Missing | Check backups, external drives, or cloud storage; re-download if needed |
- Windows only (paths are parsed as Windows absolute paths)
- Read-only, premiere_media_checker never moves, copies, or modifies any files
- Detects mismatches by filename, so two different files with the same name in different folders may produce an incorrect "wrong place" result
- Does not parse Dynamic Link compositions or After Effects project dependencies