After Effects: Workflow advice, working from/updating archived projects

Question

I have a question about optimizing my workflow in regards to archiving. I feel like there must be a better way method to what I’m doing at the moment. What I currently do, after I’m done working in a .aep file, is clean up my project, organize my Project panel, get rid of any unused or redundant compositions/files etc., and finally use File > Dependencies > Collect Files…, to put everything in one place, and have everything linked up in a concise, local location.

This works great imo. I was wondering however whether it was possible to, say, when working from this new .aep file – adding new files/directories to it, maybe removing some – ‘update’ it in such a way that the directory setup doesn’t change, but all the additional files get added to this directory.

Am I using the Collect Files… function wrong? Is it something only used for preparing files for passing them on? Is there a way of working that comes close to what I’m describing? Very curious to hear your guys input or workflow advice. I feel like there’s a better way of working that I’m not utilizing.

Thanks in advance, and kind regards,

Armand

Answer 1

This isn't the right answer, but it's what I do:

Keep everything for your project in a single folder. Everthing. Even if it means duplicating things from other projects or from templates that you use all the time.

Regularly back up the folder to another drive. Use Chronosync to do this. It works very reliably, and can do incremental backups intelligently.

When you're done, keep your backups somewhere sensible and delete from your working drives.

This isn't the most space-efficient way to work, but it means you reliably never lose anything.

Collect files takes forever and is complicated. Chronosync means pressing a single button then forgetting about it.