How do you batch merge many clips in a premiere pro timeline?

Question

I'm sure there are other use cases for this as well, but the major one that I can think of is creating a bin out of the synced sequence pluraleyes creates.

When pluraleyes syncs your footage with audio, it will create a sequence that looks like this:

To get these clips into a bin, one method, (documented here) is for each clip in the timeline, you have to shift click on the footage + the layers of audio underneath. Select merge clips and then it'll create a merged clip in your project.

This can go from tedious to impractical, depending on how many clips you have. Is there a way to speed up this process?

Answer 1

There are at least two ways I have found to do this so far.

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Out of the box method

The easiest possible way to speed this process up is to set a few keyboard shortcuts and close the project window.

1. Open the keyboard shortcut manager. Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts
2. Search for merge and set Merge Clips to a shortcut. I picked Ctrl+Shift+Y

   

3. Search for select next clip and set Select Next Clip to a shortcut. I picked Ctrl+Down

   

4. Close the project folder pane. This will make things 10X faster. Without doing this every time you merge a clip, focus will be given to the project pane. If you don't do this, the process will be. ctrl+shift+Y > enter > ctrl+down > click back to timeline. If you do this you never have to leave the keyboard you can just do ctrl+shift+Y > enter > ctrl+down > ctrl+shift+Y until the end of your timeline.

If you do all of that, and close the project pane, the process would look something like this:

https://i.imgur.com/7Yyy1T4.gifv

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Super hacky, but I guess it works, method

While the above does work fine, and will probably speed up doing this with a mouse by a factor of ten. If you have a timeline with hundreds of clips, this is going to get really tedious.

So, all we need to automate this, is something to do these keyboard shortcuts for us while we go and... do something else

If you can't find a rocking bird. The next best thing is going to be autohotkey. I don't know what the MacOS equivalent of this is, but at least on windows the process would look something like this.

1. Estimate how many clips are in your timeline 100ish, 200ish?
2. Download and install AutoHotkey
3. Download this Autohotkey script

    ^j::
    Loop, x ; Set x to estimate of clips in timeline, 100, 200, etc. 
    {
    Send, ^+y ; Merge clips shortcut 
    Sleep, 100 ; Wait for dialogue
    Send, {Enter} ; Press enter
    Sleep, 100 ; Wait for merge
    Send, ^{Down} ; Select next clip shortcut
    Sleep, 100 ; Wait for next clip
    }
    return

4. Right click on mergeclips.ahk on your desktop > select edit script
5. Set x to the number of clips you want to merge. Save the file.
6. Double click on the script on your desktop. This will listen in the background for your keyboard shortcut press.
7. Go to premiere, make sure your project pane is closed
8. Make sure your premiere keyboard shortcuts are set to the ones I listed above.
9. Select the first clip on the timeline you want to merge.
10. Press ctrl+j to start the script :)

Demo: https://i.imgur.com/N4hD09d.gifv