Can You Run Adobe Premiere On Macbook Air
For years, video has been taking over what we see online and in our daily lives. The large demand for video content means that many videographers are taking the leap from hobbyist to accepting commissions and making a business out of their services.
One of the essential parts of being a professional video editor is having the right tools. While there are more options on the market than ever, Adobe Premiere Pro is the industry leader when it comes to high-quality video editing. Its simple-to-use interface allows anyone, from Hollywood filmmakers and TV editors to YouTubers and videographers, to tell their stories and make outstanding content.
Whether it’s fast-turn TV series, feature films, or viral videos, Adobe Premiere Pro allows you to polish your work without leaving your desk. However, it seems that the further you push into your craft, the more Adobe Premiere Pro slows down. And in some specific cases, it can stop working altogether.
As forums and customer support are often less than helpful, refer to the list of neat tricks compiled below that can help you in times when you find Adobe Premiere Pro slow.
Why is Adobe Premiere Pro running slow?
Most modern processors with 4 cores are above will be a good choice for a laptop to Adobe Premiere Pro. It is smart to go with an Intel processor as they have a good track record with running Adobe Premiere Pro. You can go wrong with a current-gen i5 or i7 processor with 4 cores or more and a maximum clock speed of above 3.5GHz. In any situation, this laptop has everything that you’ll need to run Adobe Premiere including i7-6700HQ and 16 GB of RAM. While this MacBook only has an integrated Intel graphical chipset, it has excellent battery life (eight hours plus) and is feather-light weighing in at just four pounds.
Along with tools for color, audio, and graphics, Adobe Premiere Pro boasts some impressive features. It offers high-end extras, such as 360-degree video support, motion tracking, and multicam editing — all without leaving the app.
But there’s also the culprit that’s causing Adobe Premiere Pro slowness. And when you set out to find it, look no further than Adobe’s hunger for power and space. Greedy features, like Rendering and 8K Support, can slow down your computer’s internal processor, which causes lag and leaves you waiting hours when importing large media files. So what can you do?
1. Minimize your screen setup
If you want to improve Adobe Premiere Pro rendering speed, take a look at your physical setup. Do you have more than one screen plugged in? While this may help your workflow, it can use up all your processing power just as easily. If this is the case, disconnect any extra screens. Doing this should help speed up simple processes and improve the rendering time, as it allows your computer to focus its resources on one single screen, improving the per-pixel output.
2. Work with proxy video clips
If you are having serious speed issues and decide to speak to an Adobe representative, they will often say the solution is to work on proxies as part of your workflow. Specifically, using Cineform proxies for all H.264 media.
What is a proxy? A proxy is a low-resolution copy of your media. By downloading a proxy you are essentially taking the selected video clip offline to make changes. This is often known as an offline edit. Whereas, relinking back to the full-resolution media is known as an online edit.
When you use proies, by adjusting your Ingest Settings, you can tell Adobe Premiere Pro to go through fewer processes when it imports your media.
To work on proxies:
- Open your project in Adobe Premiere Pro
- Click File > Project Settings > Ingest Settings
- Select the Ingest checkbox
- Click Create Proxies from the dropdown menu
- Save the proxies to your computer or to Creative Cloud for access on any device
3. Customize Adobe Premiere Pro system preferences
Another way to fix Adobe Premiere Pro slow rendering issues is to adjust the Preferences settings in the media browser. Speed up the app by removing all the unnecessary preference options. This helps the performance of Adobe Premiere Pro because it asks less of your computer and thus can focus on one process at a time:
- Open a Media Window and click Premiere Pro from the navigation menu along the top of your screen
- Go to Preferences
- Starting with the General section, go into each of the sections and turn off everything you don’t need
Make sure to pay special attention to turning off extra processes in the Sequence settings and Hardware settings. Also, you can give the app a much-needed power surge by changing the output in the Audio Hardware settings.
The more you can turn off, the more you will be able to improve the overall performance of Adobe Premiere Pro.
4. Reinstall Adobe Premiere Pro
Still finding Adobe Premiere Pro to be running slow? As a last resort, you can always try uninstalling the app completely and reinstalling again. This is a time-consuming approach, but by starting afresh you can close any background processes that the app is running that aren't crucial to your workflow.
To uninstall Adobe Premiere Pro:
- Open a new Finder window
- Click Go from the navigation menu, then select Go To Folder
- Enter /Applications/Utilities/Adobe Installers
- Start the Uninstaller for Adobe Premiere Pro
You can reinstall the app the way you did it when you first set it up, or by downloading it from your Adobe online account.
5. Speed up your Mac with CleanMyMac
Doing the above steps can be frustrating and time-consuming. Instead, if you're using Mac and want to save some time, you should consider installing a smart-scan cleaning tool like CleanMyMac X. CleanMyMac X will clean up junk files in your Mac and reduce background processes, which will help Adobe Premiere Pro run at its best.
To instantly clean your computer files:
- Download CleanMyMac X (free trial available) and follow the setup instructions
- Under the Cleanup section, click System Junk and click Run
- Click Clean to remove the junk
- Once the process has finished, don’t forget to empty your trash!
Going through the automated cleaning process, people are always amazed at how much junk their computers can hide.
If you want to feel the effects of total optimization, then run through all of the features that CleanMyMac X offers. From Malware Removal to Optimization, CleanMyMac X will dig deep and find all of those pesky background processes that are dragging down your computer’s speed.
Now, you and your computer can breathe freely again and get back to making epic movies on Adobe Premiere Pro, or even creating the next big viral video.
An eGPU can give your Mac additional graphics performance for professional apps, 3D gaming, VR content creation, and more.
eGPUs are supported by any Thunderbolt 3-equipped Mac1 running macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 or later. Learn how to update the software on your Mac.
An eGPU lets you do all this on your Mac:
- Accelerate apps that use Metal, OpenGL, and OpenCL
- Connect additional external monitors and displays
- Use virtual reality headsets plugged into the eGPU
- Charge your MacBook Pro while using the eGPU
- Use an eGPU with your MacBook Pro while its built-in display is closed
- Connect an eGPU while a user is logged in
- Connect more than one eGPU using the multiple Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports on your Mac2
- Use the menu bar item to safely disconnect the eGPU
- View the activity levels of built-in and external GPUs (Open Activity Monitor, then choose Window > GPU History.)
eGPU support in apps
eGPU support in macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 and later is designed to accelerate Metal, OpenGL, and OpenCL apps that benefit from a powerful eGPU. Not all apps support eGPU acceleration; check with the app's developer to learn more.3
In general, an eGPU can accelerate performance in these types of apps:
- Pro apps designed to utilize multiple GPUs
- 3D games, when an external monitor is attached directly to the eGPU
- VR apps, when the VR headset is attached directly to the eGPU
- Pro apps and 3D games that accelerate the built-in display of iMac, iMac Pro, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro (This capability must be enabled by the app's developer.)
You can configure applications to use an eGPU with one of the following methods.
Use the Prefer External GPU option
Starting with macOS Mojave 10.14, you can turn on Prefer External GPU in a specific app's Get Info panel in the Finder. This option lets the eGPU accelerate apps on any display connected to the Mac—including displays built in to iMac, iMac Pro, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro:
- Quit the app if it's open.
- Select the app in the Finder. Most apps are in your Applications folder. If you open the app from an alias or launcher, Control-click the app's icon and choose Show Original from the pop-up menu. Then select the original app.
- Press Command-I to show the app's info window.
- Select the checkbox next to Prefer External GPU.
- Open the app to use it with the eGPU.
You won't see this option if an eGPU isn't connected, if your Mac isn't running macOS Mojave or later, or if the app self-manages its GPU selection. Some apps, such as Final Cut Pro, directly choose which graphics processors are used and will ignore the Prefer External GPU checkbox.
Set an external eGPU-connected display as the primary display
If you have an external display connected to your eGPU, you can choose it as the primary display for all apps. Since apps default to the GPU associated with the primary display, this option works with a variety of apps:
- Quit any open apps that you want the eGPU to accelerate on the primary display.
- Choose Apple menu > System Preferences. Select Displays, then select the Arrangement tab.
- Drag the white menu bar to the box that represents the display that's attached to the eGPU.
- Open the apps that you want to use with the eGPU.
If you disconnect the eGPU, your Mac defaults back to the internal graphics processors that drives the built-in display. When the eGPU is re-attached, it automatically sets the external display as the primary display.
About macOS GPU drivers
Mac hardware and GPU software drivers have always been deeply integrated into the system. This design fuels the visually rich and graphical macOS experience as well as many deeper platform compute and graphics features. These include accelerating the user interface, providing support for advanced display features, rendering 3D graphics for pro software and games, processing photos and videos, driving powerful GPU compute features, and accelerating machine learning tasks. This deep integration also enables optimal battery life while providing for greater system performance and stability.
Apple develops, integrates, and supports macOS GPU drivers to ensure there are consistent GPU capabilities across all Mac products, including rich APIs like Metal, Core Animation, Core Image, and Core ML. In order to deliver the best possible customer experience, GPU drivers need to be engineered, integrated, tested, and delivered with each version of macOS. Aftermarket GPU drivers delivered by third parties are not compatible with macOS.
The GPU drivers delivered with macOS are also designed to enable a high quality, high performance experience when using an eGPU, as described in the list of recommended eGPU chassis and graphics card configurations below. Because of this deep system integration, only graphics cards that use the same GPU architecture as those built into Mac products are supported in macOS.
Supported eGPU configurations
It's important to use an eGPU with a recommended graphics card and Thunderbolt 3 chassis. If you use an eGPU to also charge your MacBook Pro, the eGPU's chassis needs to provide enough power to run the graphics card and charge the computer. Check with the manufacturer of the chassis to find out if it provides enough power for your MacBook Pro.
Recommended graphics cards, along with chassis that can power them sufficiently, are listed below.
Thunderbolt 3 all-in-one eGPU products
These products contain a powerful built-in GPU and supply sufficient power to charge your MacBook Pro.
Recommended Thunderbolt 3 all-in-one eGPUs:
- Blackmagic eGPU and Blackmagic eGPU Pro4
- Gigabyte RX 580 Gaming Box4
- Sonnet Radeon RX 570 eGFX Breakaway Puck
- Sonnet Radeon RX 560 eGFX Breakaway Puck5
AMD Radeon RX 470, RX 480, RX 570, RX 580, and Radeon Pro WX 7100
These graphics cards are based on the AMD Polaris architecture. Recommended graphics cards include the Sapphire Pulse series and the AMD WX series.
Recommended Thunderbolt 3 chassis for these graphics cards:
- OWC Mercury Helios FX4
- PowerColor Devil Box
- Sapphire Gear Box
- Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Box 350W
- Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Box 550W4
- Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Box 650W4
- Razer Core X4
- PowerColor Game Station4
- HP Omen4
- Akitio Node6
AMD Radeon RX Vega 56
Adobe Premiere Mac Crack
These graphics cards are based on the AMD Vega 56 architecture. Recommended graphics cards include the Sapphire Vega 56.
Recommended Thunderbolt 3 chassis for these graphics cards:
- OWC Mercury Helios FX4
- PowerColor Devil Box
- Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Box 550W4
- Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Box 650W4
- Razer Core X4
- PowerColor Game Station4
AMD Radeon RX Vega 64, Vega Frontier Edition Air, and Radeon Pro WX 9100
These graphics cards are based on the AMD Vega 64 architecture. Recommended graphics cards include the Sapphire Vega 64, AMD Frontier Edition air-cooled, and AMD Radeon Pro WX 9100.
Recommended Thunderbolt 3 chassis for these graphics cards:
- Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Box 650W4
- Razer Core X4
AMD Radeon RX 5700, 5700 XT, and 5700 XT 50th Anniversary
If you've installed macOS Catalina 10.15.1 or later, you can use these graphics cards that are based on the AMD Navi RDNA architecture. Recommended graphics cards include the AMD Radeon RX 5700, AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT, and AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT 50th Anniversary.
Recommended Thunderbolt 3 chassis for these graphics cards:
- Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Box 650W4
- Razer Core X4
Learn more
- Learn how to choose your GPU in Final Cut Pro X 10.4.7 or later.
- To ensure the best eGPU performance, use the Thunderbolt 3 cable that came with your eGPU or an Apple Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) cable. Also make sure that the cable is connected directly to a Thunderbolt 3 port on your Mac, not daisy-chained through another Thunderbolt device or hub.
- If you have questions about Thunderbolt 3 chassis or graphics cards, or about third-party app support and compatibility, contact the hardware or software provider.
- Software developers can learn more about programming their apps to take advantage of macOS eGPU support.
1. If you have a Mac mini (2018) with FileVault turned on, make sure to connect your primary display directly to Mac mini during startup. After you log in and see the macOS Desktop, you can unplug the display from Mac mini and connect it to your eGPU.
2. If you're using a 13-inch MacBook Pro from 2016 or 2017, always plug eGPUs and other high-performance devices into the left-hand ports for maximum data throughput.
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3. macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 and later don't support eGPUs in Windows using Boot Camp or when your Mac is in macOS Recovery or installing system updates.
4. These chassis provide at least 85 watts of charging power, making them ideal for use with 15-inch MacBook Pro models.
5. Playback of HDCP-protected content from iTunes and some streaming services is not supported on displays attached to Radeon 560-based eGPUs. You can play this content on the built-in display on MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and iMac.
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6. If you use Akitio Node with a Mac notebook, you might need to connect your Mac to its power adapter to ensure proper charging.