Please allow for backwards compatibility between versions of Adobe Premiere. It is very difficult to work on a project with different people in a company, or outside client, when we all have different versions of a project & one of us can't open or edit a project created in a "newer" version of the same software. This is unnecessary & incredibly limiting.'

"while this is a rather critical and large change to the way the application works'

If that is the case then is something wrong with the way your application works. The basic elements of a sequence, cuts, tracks basic transitions, should gracefully move from product version to product version. I wonder if you are tying properties of the clips to the sequence rather than applying them to the clips.

I mean, I can open Media Composer projects from the 90s in current version of MC. And send them to people still using AVBV and Meridian systems, who can also open them.

It's not a biggie if certain filters/effects don't work.

Hello Everyone,

I am experiencing a very difficult time on this subject. Really appreciate the help

I was using Yosemite with adobe cc 2015 on my mac, however I've dropped by laptop last week and to be able to save it Mac Team had to format it.

And also they upgrade it to Sierra.

Luckly, I was keeping the back up of my premiere project in a hard drive.

Once my laptop arrived I downloed adobe cc 2015 to be able to open the projects, but it was giving me the warning:

The project was saved in a newer version of premiere pro and cannot be opened in this version.

I thought so maybe I download the old version of 2015 so I've downloaded the highest version of cc 2015.

But it gave me the same warning:

The project was saved in a newer version of premiere pro and cannot be opened in this version.

Then, because this is my feature film that I was working on it for 3 years. I started to panic and I download the Premiere pro cc 2017. I thought... This can't be older than the 2015 version I was using.

But No!

But it gave me the same warning:

The project was saved in a newer version of premiere pro and cannot be opened in this version.

I contacted with adobe support team, they can't understant the reason and they couldn't find a solution other than exporting as XML.

Which is very difficult for my project because I have 40 different projects file.

I used this website downgraded my files : Premiere Pro Downgrader

and it worked

It is opening right now.

But the image quality of the program is not good as it was.

And after all this I feel scared of this process.

Can anyone know the reason of this

And have a greater solution that converting the project on online website.

All the best,

This. It's not like we're trying to open new versions with something created in 1957. It's pretty obnoxious and tone deaf.

How do you do a parallel install?

上位バージョンの新機能が反映されないのは仕方がない。それ以外の基本的な編集データを維持したまま下位のヴァージョンでも開ける状態にして欲しい。
It can not be helped that the new version of the new version is not reflected. I want you to be able to open even the lower versions while maintaining other basic editing data.

Adobe Premiereのバージョン間の下位互換性を考慮してください。
私たち全員が異なるバージョンのプロジェクトを持っていて、そのうちの1人が新しいバージョンのプロジェクトで作成したプロジェクトを開いたり編集したりすることができない場合、会社やクライアント以外の人とプロジェクトを共同で行うことは非常に困難です。 同じソフトウェアなのに。 これは信じられないほど制限的で、この制限は必要ありません。

Please allow for backwards compatibility between versions of Adobe Premiere. It is very difficult to work on a project with different people in a company, or outside client, when we all have different versions of a project & one of us can't open or edit a project created in a "newer" version of the same software. This is unnecessary & incredibly limiting.

Totally agree!

FYI I found this today and I am sharing it everywhere I can!

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

I agree that this would be amazing!

FYI You can use this tool as well http://www.joshcluderay.com/downgrade-premiere-project-converter/ or manually revert it with the instructions in this post - https://video.stackexchange.com/questions/3804/how-do-i-downgrade-an-adobe-premiere-pro-project-file-to-open-in-older-version/21365#21365

We should be able to save down to the last version of the software and here's why.

• RISK: installing and working only from the latest version of adobe software is very risky with all the hidden bugs that happen every major update.

• FILE SHARING: not everyone takes said risk and works to the latest update.

• FILE RECOVERY: like the situation I'm in now, I worked 20 hours on a project that only now will crash every time it's opened. I have a minute which would be long enough to save a file but is not workable.

• PROMOTES STAYING UP TO DATE: if users can save down, the risk is lessened and promotes more users to provide valuable user data.

Saving to XML: This option does not save applied effects reliably which can mean hours added to the project deadline.

This feature has been needed and requested for over 3 years now. Other adobe softwares have had this feature for over 10. It's time...

Ability so save a project for a previous version of Premiere. The same way After Effects does.

Honestly, the most simple solution to this is to just have Premiere be able to convert newer project files to be compatible with older versions of Premiere. If I open a newer project in an older version, instead of just telling me "You can't open this."... give me an option to convert it so that it's openable, even if that means getting rid of some features in the project or whatever it would entail. Just offer some kind of automatic solution so that your customers who need some kind of solution don't have to go searching for workarounds. It really shouldn't be so complicated.

It could function as more of an import than an open. Some new features and effects won't work, but the majority of the core edit information doesn't change year to year.

A legacy save ability would be nice (Illustrator can do this, After Effects too to a lesser extent), but to truly alleviate the issue for most users, we really need to be able to open newer versions without having to open in the latest version. Ideally we can just open the project (probably being prompted to re-save somewhere new like when we open old projects) and get warnings about anything that doesn't translate. Not perfect, but an improvement over having projects be stuck in the versions they started in. It could also be a separate utility since that wouldn't require an update to all previous versions of Premiere.

Bigger picture, it would be good for project types to change only when absolutely necessary, not just with every version release.

Backwards compatibility is always a good thing. Far too rare, unfortunately.

@Paul Rubin
Below is a link to direct downloads for Adobe CC 2015. In the sidebar you can find direct download links from 2018 all the way back to CS6. I had the same issue years ago and Adobe's own Dave Helmly linked to the website--I bookmarked it and have had to go back to it several times for previous versions. Hope this helps.

https://prodesigntools.com/adobe-cc-2015-direct-download-links.html

I appreciate that we can download previous version of Premiere Pro in attempts to resolve these issues. What I don't appreciate is what a tease that function is because many of us need older versions that aren't listed as available for download. Case in point, I need the 2015 version and I spent hours of my day on the phone and typing online with Adobe technical support only to be ultimately sent to this board and nothing else. It seems for years many of us can't open our older files because Adobe has decided to only make certain previous versions available for download. I take some responsibility for stupidly ignoring the advice of friends who told me not to update my Adobe Premiere Pro. Also this notion presented above by the admin of keeping an older version on 1 of 2 editing computer is laughable. My laptop is my second editing computer - IN AN EMERGENCY. Even then I doubt I could edit much on it. I wonder how much money people have lost from Adobe's seemingly short-sighted thinking when it comes to their updates. People use this editing software for their jobs - their livelihoods. Surprised there hasn't been a class action lawsuit yet.

In an ideal world we could just update to the latest release and let the project update. But we've experienced so many old bugs being reintroduced and new bugs to features already working in previous version that we systematically have to hold on new releases. A postproduction facility like ours cannot spare to find out the problems as we go and debug all day. This is a plague almost every Premiere release as been affected for years and if it's not taken care of by the team very soon, we'll have to look at other solutions for the perennity of our business.

Adobe is full of it! here is absolutely NO programmatic reason that Adobe projects must be locked to specific versions except for Adobe wanting to keep people locked into cloud subscriptions. An Adobe Project file is little more than an XML file. There is no functional reason that the XML data could not be parseable by any version of the AdobeCC apps while ignoring the upgraded or deprecated features. Media Composer has done this for years with graceful feature elimination between different versions. No one said it would be easy, but it would be considerably easier to program than the marginally useful bells and whistles that Adobe keeps foisting upon users to rationalize the continued subscription model.