Premiere Pro Only Importing Audio? These Tricks Might Help!

Lots of people use Adobe Premiere Pro to edit their videos today, but not all of them get off to a good start. Many of them, be they new beginners or skilled users, get hindered at the first step – file import. An error most users experience is that “Premiere Pro only importing audio no video.” (Some may also encounter “Premiere Pro only importing video”)

It’s a frustrating thing but, fortunately, it can be fixed easily. In the following post, we cover all situations in this problem. We’ll tell you why Adobe Premiere only imports audio and give the corresponding solutions. You can compare your case with these situations and check the relevant solutions. But we suggest that you try out all these methods, so you’ll have a higher chance of getting your problem fixed. Without further ado, let’s go into details.

Tips: It is advisable that you update your Premiere Pro to the latest version and restart the program first, or reboot your system to check if the error is still there. If the problem persists, try the methods below.

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Wrong video codec is the most likely reason for your “Premiere Pro imports only audio” error.

MP4, MOV, MKV, and other common video formats are only video containers that can hold media data encoded through different audio and video codecs. And when it comes to importing videos, it is usually the codecs that matter the most. For example, when importing MP4 or MOV into Premiere, if Premiere recognizes only the audio codec but not the video codec, you will see only audio gets imported in Premiere Pro.

Changing the video to a Premiere-friendly codec is the proper solution. To do it, you will need a third-party video converter to help you. The powerful WonderFox HD Video Converter Factory Pro is a good video converter to convert video codecs in simple clicks. Free download the converter and follow the steps below.

1. Launch the software and open the Converter. Next, click + Add Files or drag your video directly into the program.

2. Click the right-side format image to open the output format library. Choose a Premiere-compatible container format, such as MP4/H264. (Check all the Premiere Pro supported video formats.)

3. Open Parameter settings and change the video encoder to a supported codec, e.g. H264. Then click OK to save the changes.

4. Click the bottom triangle button or set an output folder or leave it as default. Finally, hit Run to start the conversion.

5. Import the converted file into Premiere Pro again and see if the problem goes away.

Tips: Other import failures like Premiere Pro not importing video at all and Premiere import only video no audio might also come from this cause. And you can fix it by changing the formats or/and codecs with this software, too.

Sometimes the old or unused cache files can affect Premiere Pro’s functionality and lead to Premiere only importing audio errors. You can try to clear the media cache to improve the overall performance. Here is how:

1. Open your Premiere Pro and navigate to Edit > Preferences > Media Cache.

2. Select the Delete… button next to Remove Media Cache Files.

3. In the next dialog box, select Delete all media cache files from the system.

4. Click OK.

5. Restart Premiere Pro and see if it works.

If your video is recorded on your iPhone or other recording devices, the VFR (variable frame rates) may be the factor to blame. Most video editors, including Premiere Pro, do not work well with VFR videos. And the common problem you see with Premiere Pro is that the audio would go out of sync and only Audio importing into Premiere.

The best solution is to convert VFR to CFR before the import. We will be using the program used in Fix 1 to help achieve this conversion (and during which, you can also check whether the video is in a Premiere-compatible format and make some relevant optimizations).

Now, download the tool and follow the instructions to convert VFR to CFR.

1. Run HD Video Converter Factory Pro and open the Converter.

2. Import your video into this program and choose a Premiere-supported output format.

3. Open Parameter settings and find Frame rate. Pick one option from the frame rate drop-down list. We suggest frame rates above 20fps for normal video consistency.

4. Click Run to start converting VFR to CFR.

5. Check if it troubleshoots the issue.

If your video is dropped successfully into the media bin but no video in the timeline, you can try the following two fixes.

Source patching decides which track to appear in the timeline. If the video track is not turned on, it will lead to Premiere Pro not importing video only audio. Just make sure both V1 and A1 are turned on (highlighted in blue) to the left of the timeline and see if it works.

Here is one last approach… Right-click your video and select New Sequence From Clip. If you see both audio and video tracks appear, copy and paste the full clip to your main timeline and work from there.

Why is Premiere Pro only importing audio? I guess now you had the answer and the solutions. I hope the methods mentioned here have helped solve your Premiere Pro only importing audio problem. But if none of the above solutions do the trick, call Adobe support for more help.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading.