How to Quickly Nest & Unnest Clips in Premiere Pro

Learning to work efficiently in Premiere Pro is a must. It saves time, and ensures that you reduce mistakes while editing. Timeline management is a big part of that. Let’s learn these two skills in this tutorial.

What Does Nesting Mean?

Nesting in Premiere Pro is a useful feature that allows you to group multiple clips and apply effects or transformations to them as a single unit. 

This can help streamline your editing process by organizing complex timelines and reducing clutter. Once you nest clips, you can apply effects, transitions, or adjustments to the entire group at once, saving you time and effort. Additionally, nesting can also improve performance in your project by reducing the processing power required to playback or render multiple layers. 

How to Nest and Unnest in Premiere Pro

Nesting in Premiere Pro helps you join clips together. That means that you won’t have to move or adjust many individual clips as you work on the timeline. But in case you need to adjust them individually, it helps to know how to unnest in Premiere Pro, too.

Let’s tackle both skills in this tutorial. I’ll work with two stock video clips from Envato Elements. You can download them hereand here.

How to Nest in Premiere Pro (Step by Step)

Nesting in Premiere Pro is a vital skill to edit more efficiently. You can merge several multimedia clips into one single track. It’s a great way to clean up your project Timeline and streamline your production workflow.

1. Choose Media to Nest

Nesting works for any multimedia that you have in your project’s Timeline. This includes video clips, audio, music, still images, graphics, and more. Here, we’ll nest clips linked above into one. 

As you can see above, I have both clips on my Premiere Pro Timeline. If you’re not familiar, the Timeline sits in the lower center of your Premiere Pro screen. It’s right below the video preview panel, which is called the Program Monitor. 

2. Start Nesting Clips in Premiere Pro

To start nesting clips in Premiere, go to your Timeline. Begin by clicking on the first multimedia clip that you want to nest. Then, hold down the Shift key on your keyboard. With it held down, click on any other clips that you want to nest.

Then, go to the Clip dropdown in the upper left corner of Premiere Pro. Click Clip, and from the bottom of the list, choose Nest. Give your sequence a name, then click OK.

Now, look at your Timeline. Instead of individual clips, you’ll see a single green clip. This is a Nested Sequence. Just like that, you’ve learned how to start nesting clips in Premiere Pro.

How to Unnest in Premiere Pro

You’ve learned about nesting clips in Premiere Pro. But sometimes, you’ll want to unnest a sequence and return to the individual clips. Fortunately, unnesting is easy to do. Let’s learn how to unnest in Premiere Pro. 

If you just created a nested sequence, you can undo it by going to Edit > Undo. But sometimes, unnesting takes a few extra steps. Let’s work through these:

1. Open the Nested Track

Remember, nested clips in Premiere Pro show up as green tracks in your Timeline. To learn how to un nest in Premiere Pro, you’ll want to open the nested track, which is called a nested sequence. 

To open the nested sequence, simply double-click on the green clip in your Timeline. When you do, you’ll be taken to a new Timeline tab. It will be labeled by the name that you gave your nested sequence when you created it. 

2. Move Media to the Original Sequence

On the Nested Sequence tab, you’ll see your individual clips. Again, these can include videos, audio, and more. In our example, you’ll see both of the video clips, side by side.

Want to edit them in your original project, free from nesting clips? All that you have to do is move clips back to your original sequence. Begin by clicking and dragging one of the video clips. Move it over the original sequence tab, which here is labeled Sequence 01. This tab will open. Then, you can drag the clip over the Timeline and drop it into place.

You can repeat this with the other media in your nested sequence. All will return to the original Timeline, and you can delete the green Nested Sequence clip. 

That’s how to unnest in Premiere Pro. When you know how to nest and unnest, you can edit more efficiently. And that’s all while maintaining full control over your Premiere Pro multimedia. It’s a powerful feature that you’ll use every day!

The Best Source for Premiere Pro Templates (With Unlimited Downloads)

Envato Elements is the go-to choice for Adobe Premiere Pro templates. These pre-built designs make video editing much easier. Elements has thousands of projects that can kickstart your next project!

Elements has an unbeatable offer: unlimited downloads. At one flat rate price, you can grab as many files as you need for your next video project. The database is carefully screened for top quality files that will save you time and give you better results.

Beyond Premiere Pro templates, you’ll also unlock unlimited access to plenty of files to round out your next production. That includes stock photos, graphic assets, audio, and so much more.

Templates give you plenty of flexibility and save you time. Simply update the placeholders with your content, and you’re on your way. Join today and unlock all of this and so much more!

You Just Mastered Nesting Clips and Unnestting Clips in Adobe Premiere Pro

It’s crucial to learn how to un nest in Premiere Pro. Nesting clips and unnesting is the key to keeping your timeline clean. That helps you move more quickly and efficiently while editing, saving you a ton of time.

Now, it’s your turn. It’s time to practice how to nest in Premiere Pro. Clean up a messy project you’re working on. Then, reverse course as you practice how to unnest in Premiere Pro. This is the best way to commit your new skill to memory!