Save To Project

A tiny Windows tray app for After Effects, Media Encoder, Premiere Pro and Maya users. Nothing else to install.

Download: grab SaveToProject.exe from the latest release.

Whenever one of those apps opens a Save As / Output Movie To / Export dialog, the dialog jumps to the folder of the project that is currently open, instead of wherever Windows last saved something.

Project open in After Effects:
  D:\Studio Dropbox\Clients\Acme\JOB1234_Promo_Oct26\01_Projects\01 - AE\02 - Compositing\Hero\Hero_V07.aep

Save dialog opens at:
  D:\Studio Dropbox\Clients\Acme\JOB1234_Promo_Oct26

Install

1. Copy SaveToProject.exe anywhere (e.g. C:\Tools\SaveToProject\). Keep it there; don't run it from Downloads.
2. Double-click it. A folder icon appears in the system tray.
3. Answer Yes to "Start with Windows" so it is always running.

If Windows SmartScreen shows "Windows protected your PC", click More info → Run anyway. The exe is an unsigned AutoHotkey build; some antivirus tools flag those. The full source is in src\.

How it decides where to go

• The project root is the folder that contains 01_Projects. A project saved outside that structure uses the scene / project file's own folder. Your studio uses a different name? Set rootmarker= in settings.ini (e.g. rootmarker=Projects) and restart the app.
• A dialog that is already inside the project is left alone, so File → Save As still opens next to your current .aep for V07 → V08 saving.
• Media Encoder has no project of its own, so it follows After Effects, then Premiere Pro.
• Every other app (Photoshop, Illustrator, Chrome, Notepad, ...) does the same when All apps follow After Effects is on (the default): as long as AE has a project open, their Save / Export dialogs open at that project's root. With no AE project it uses Premiere's; with neither, dialogs are left alone. To keep an app out, add it to settings.ini: exclude=chrome.exe,Code.exe under [settings], then restart the app.
• Open / Import dialogs are never touched. Only dialogs whose title starts with Save, Export, Output or Render, or whose main button says Save (e.g. Firefox's "Enter name of file to save to...").
• After Effects shortens the path in its title bar (D:\Studio Dropbox\Cl ... 26\01_Projects\...). The app recovers the full path with a quick search of the drive from the visible start of the path (about 30 ms) and remembers it, so later dialogs are instant.

Maya

Maya's own file browser cannot be steered, so switch Maya to the Windows dialog once: Windows → Settings/Preferences → Preferences → Files/Projects → File Dialog: OS native. After that, Save Scene As / Export dialogs open at the project root (the folder holding 01_Projects above the scene; otherwise the scene's own folder).

Houdini

Not supported. Houdini on Windows has no option to use the Windows file dialog, and its own file chooser cannot be redirected from outside. If you want the same behaviour in Houdini, the Houdini way is a 456.py startup script that sets $JOB to the project root when a .hip loads.

Tray menu

Item	What it does
Enabled	Pause / resume the redirect
All apps follow After Effects	Also redirect Save / Export dialogs of every other program to the AE project root
Subfolder under project...	Land in a subfolder of the root, e.g. 09_Output. Empty = root. If a project lacks that subfolder the root is used.
Start with Windows	Adds / removes a shortcut in your Startup folder
Show current project	Shows the detected projects, the folder dialogs will open at, and how the last lookup was resolved. Use this first when something looks wrong.
Open settings folder	%APPDATA%\SaveToProject\settings.ini

Requirements

Windows 10 / 11. Any recent After Effects, Media Encoder, Premiere Pro or Maya.

Build from source

Needs AutoHotkey v1.1 with its Compiler folder (Ahk2Exe.exe + Unicode 64-bit.bin), then:

.\build.ps1

src\savedlg_core.ahk is the logic; src\SaveToProject.ahk is the tray shell. The core can also be #Included into an existing AutoHotkey script: call SaveDlg_Init() once.