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After Effects
Pluck
Pull any comp, or just the layers you need, from any project
- Built for motion designers who regularly reuse work, share scenes, or need to deliver tidy project files.
- Drag and drop to import comps, or individual layers, directly from other project files.
- Export selected comps as clean, self-contained project files with all dependencies included.
- Favourites and libraries give you one-click access to the comps you use most.
- *NEW in v1.5* - Per layer imports. Grab just the layers you need.
You need a comp from a previous project. Until now there was no good way to do this. You either imported the whole project and cleaned up by hand, or ran a five step round trip of Open project, Select comp, Reduce project, Save as, Import.
Pluck replaces all of that. Drop an .aep onto the panel, pick the comps you want, hit Import. Only those comps land in your project, with their precomps and footage. Nothing else. Need less than a whole comp? Expand it and pick individual layers instead.
Pluck it
Drop your .aep onto the Pluck panel. It reads the file instantly without opening it in After Effects, and shows you every composition inside.
- Full comp list with dimensions, fps and duration
- Search and filter by name
- Select one comp or many
- See everything before you import anything
Import individual layers
New in v1.5. Click the arrow on any comp to see its layers, tick the ones you want, and Pluck brings in a slimmed-down copy of the comp containing just those layers, ready to drag or paste into your own comp. Anything your layers depend on comes along automatically: parents, track mattes, and expression-linked layers.
Dependencies and folder structure
Pluck pulls in everything your selected comps depend on and mirrors the original project's folder structure inside yours.
- Automatic dependency resolution, precomps and footage included
- Footage deduplication, existing items relinked rather than duplicated
- Expression warnings, flags broken references before they surprise you
- Source folder structure mirrored inside your project
- Option to copy and relink assets, so you can edit artwork files without affecting your original project
Favourites, recents and libraries
- Star any comp to add it to your Favourites for one-click import from anywhere, without loading the source project
- Organise favourites into libraries. Create as many as you like and flick between one library or everything at once
- Recent projects tab tracks your last 10 source projects for instant reloading
- Rename, reorder and relink favourites. If a project file moves, relink all its favourites in one go
Folder and import options
Control how imported items are organised and tagged.
- Mirror source folder structure
- Auto-sort by type
- Flat import into a single folder
- Custom sub-folder name
- Label colour applied to imported items
- Option to open the comp in the timeline after import
- Optional solids tidy-up merges imported solids and nulls into your project's main Solids folder
Pluck Off
Works the other way too. Drop any comp, or several comps, from your project onto the Pluck panel to export them as a standalone project. Save as standalone files, or as a fully contained .zip ready for sharing or archiving.
Export any comp as a self contained project.
- Standalone .aep with footage alongside
- Single .zip containing everything
- Custom filenames using tokens for comp name, project name and date
- Controller comps linked by expressions are collected too, so nothing breaks at the other end
- Separate file naming for batch exports
Full feature list
- Reads any .aep without opening it in After Effects, including projects saved by much older versions of AE
- Full comp list with dimensions, fps and duration before importing anything
- Search and filter by name
- Select one comp or many
- Import individual layers from any comp, with parents, track mattes and expression-linked layers resolved automatically
- Automatic dependency resolution - precomps and footage included
- Expression-linked controller comps imported and exported automatically
- Footage deduplication. Pluck relinks existing footage rather than duplicating
- Expression warnings - flags broken references before they surprise you
- Favourites with one-click import, organised into libraries
- Recent projects tab for instant reloading
- Optional asset copy on import: footage copied into your project folder and relinked, with smart folder matching, collision handling and a post-import summary
- Mirror source folder structure, auto-sort by type, flat, or custom sub-folder
- Solids tidy-up option
- Label colour on import
- Open comp in timeline after import
- Full Unicode support for comp, folder and footage names
- Mac and Windows
Tutorial
Discussions
Want to talk about it?
Head over to r/aescripts to chat with fellow users about this product.
Need Support?
Please open a support ticket to be connected directly with the author of this product
Version History
1.5.1 -
Jul 14, 2026
New user requested feature: Solids tidy-up option (Pluck It). A new setting to automatically merge any solids (and nulls) an import brings in into your project's main Solids folder, instead of leaving them inside the Plucked folder structure. Off by default. Turn it on in Settings if you like all your solids in one place.
Fixed
Imports and exports no longer report garbled errors (function anonymous() [compiled code]) when certain other installed extensions interfere with After Effects' shared scripting environment. The work was actually completing, only the results reporting was corrupted. Pluck is now fully immune to this kind of conflict.
1.5 -
Jul 10, 2026
Huge update! So we're jumping straight from v1.3 to v1.5.
New — Import individual layers! (Pluck It). Click the arrow on any comp to see its layers, tick the ones you want, and Pluck brings in a slimmed-down copy of the comp containing just those layers ready to drag or paste into your own comp. Anything your layers depend on comes along automatically: parents, track mattes, and expression-linked layers.
New — Libraries. Organise your favourites into libraries. Create as many as you like, assign favourites from their row, and flick between one library or everything at once. If a project file moves, you can now relink all its favourites in one go.
Fixes:
Projects saved by very old versions of After Effects now load — these previously showed "0 comps" in the panel
Importing or exporting a single layer of a layered .ai or .psd with asset copy no longer breaks the artwork
Duplicate layer names inside one .ai/.psd now relink to the right layers
Asset copy set to "skip" now relinks to the existing copy instead of leaving footage linked outside your project
Unpadded image sequences (frame1, frame2… frame12) now copy every frame
A clear message if your project is saved loose on the Desktop, instead of footage copies appearing there
Comp names with characters like : / ? now export safely on both Mac and Windows
Windows ZIP exports over 2GB now work
Fewer false "expressions may break" warnings
1.3 -
Jun 30, 2026
Pluck It: If you import a comp that's driven by a separate controller comp through an expression, Pluck now brings that controller in with it, so your expressions actually work instead of arriving broken. It'll also tell you which extra comps it pulled in. On by default.
Pluck Off: Same thing the other way round. If you export a comp that leans on a controller, and the controller goes with it, so nothing breaks at the other end. On by default.
Fixed: Double-click to import now reliably imports the comp you clicked, old warnings no longer hang around between imports, large and awkward .aep files are handled more robustly, and there's a handful of other reliability fixes under the hood.
1.2.5 -
Jun 18, 2026
Fixed: Pluck Off no longer risks your project when run unsaved, and restores it if an export fails
Fixed: image sequences now export with all frames, and multiple comps export reliably without overwriting.
Fixed: imports no longer show false errors, silently skip comps, or fail on edge-case names or HDR environment-light projects.
Improved: sturdier ZIP creation and clearer error messages.
1.2.4 -
Jun 2, 2026
Plucking or exporting a comp that shares a layered .ai/.psd file with other comps no longer brings in the other comps' unused layers.
1.2.3 -
May 27, 2026
About panel now reports the correct version number instead of a stale hardcoded value.
Comps with curly quotes in their names (common on macOS where straight quotes auto-convert) now import correctly instead of failing with "Could not find comps".
Clearer error message when a failed import also fails to clean up, so you know if orphan content was left in your project.
Pluck Off (export) improvements
Layered Illustrator and Photoshop files in exported comps now preserve their layer references. Previously every layer would collapse to "layer 1" of the copied file, visually breaking the export. Same fix as v1.2.1 applied to the export side.
Footage that collides with an existing file at the destination is now renamed with a counter suffix instead of silently overwriting.
Footage that fails to copy is now reported as a warning, so you know if your exported project has any missing links.
Faster exports on large source projects.
1.2.2 -
May 21, 2026
Layered Illustrator and Photoshop footage items now land inside the Plucked folder. A regression from v1.2.1's layered-file handling was leaving them loose at the project root instead of placing them in the Plucked folder structure with the other imported assets. They now correctly inherit their original AE folder placement, so mirror mode preserves the source project's hierarchy and other modes place them sensibly.
1.2.1 -
May 20, 2026
Asset copy now lands in your project folder for any project location. Previously, when your project was saved into an empty folder on the Desktop (or any folder without other subfolders), Pluck could walk up too far and dump asset copies into your original source location instead of next to your project. The destination logic now refuses to use Desktop, Documents, Downloads, your home folder, or drive roots as a project root on both macOS and Windows.
Layered Illustrator and Photoshop files are now copied and relinked correctly. Previously, a multi-layer .ai or .psd would be copied to disk once per imported layer, and all the layer references in your project would collapse to "layer 1" of those copies, breaking the visual output. Pluck now copies the file just once and relinks every layer reference to the single copy with the correct layer index preserved.
Known limitation
After an asset-copy import that involved layered .ai or .psd files, your very first action in After Effects (anything, including unrelated actions like creating a solid) may surface a "Undo group mismatch, will attempt to fix" warning when you press undo. Dismissing the warning lets the undo proceed correctly in a single step, and every action after that undoes cleanly without the warning. This is a limitation of how AE handles undo state during scripted imports and cannot be fixed from the plugin side.
1.2 -
May 19, 2026
Favourites. Star any comp in the Pluck It list to add it to your Favourites tab for one-click import from anywhere. Rename, reorder, and relink favourites as needed.
Recent projects. A Recent tab tracks the last 10 source projects you've imported from. Click any entry to reload it instantly. Missing files are flagged so you can update or remove broken entries.
Library panel. New bookmark icon in the header opens a two-tab Library (Recent + Favourites) for fast access to your common sources without re-browsing.
Improvements
Honest error handling for problematic source projects. Pluck now correctly reports when After Effects rejects a source project (for example, illegal characters in layer names from legacy archive files, or source files saved in a newer AE version). Previously these cases could silently show "Import complete" while leaving orphan folders in your project. You'll now see either a clear error with a recovery hint, or a yellow warning notice if AE imported successfully despite the warning, but never a false success.
Cleaner project state on import failures. When AE rejects an import, Pluck now removes any partial folder it created, leaving your project exactly as it was before you clicked Import.
1.1.1 -
May 15, 2026
Fixed: Importing comps from projects with non-English names. The internal matching step was silently rejecting selections whose displayed names didn't match After Effects' own names, so nothing came across.
1.1 -
May 7, 2026
New: Optional asset copy on import
When importing comps, Pluck can now optionally copy the referenced footage into your project folder and relink After Effects to the local copies. Your originals stay untouched and the imported project is fully portable. Off by default. Opt in via Settings → Pluck It → Asset handling.
Destination options
- Use your current project folder, with auto walk-up for studio templates that nest the .aep inside a PROJECTS subfolder
- Pick a folder each time you import
- Set a fixed default location
Folder organisation
- Smart match: recognises folders that already exist at your destination (ARTWORK, AUDIO, FOOTAGE, that sort of thing) and drops copies into them. Falls back to mirroring where no match exists.
- Mirror the AE folder structure on disk
- Flat: everything into a single named subfolder
Filename collisions
- Auto-rename with a numeric suffix, or your own custom prefix or suffix text
- Skip and use the existing file
- Overwrite
Other touches
- Image sequences are copied as a unit so AE still recognises them as a sequence
- Post-import summary panel shows files copied, renamed and skipped, with reasons
- Confirmation prompt for any copy over 10 GB
1.0 -
Apr 20, 2026
Pluck It: import any comp from any .aep file without opening the source project
Automatic dependency resolution including precomps and footage
Footage deduplication
Mirror source folder structure, auto-sort by type, flat and custom sub-folder options
Expression warning system
Label colour on import
Pluck Off: export any comp as a standalone .aep with assets collected
ZIP export option
Bundle or separate exports for multiple comps
Token-based file naming with {comp}, {project} and {date}
Mac and Windows support
After Effects CC 2022 and later
Compatibility
After Effects
2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022
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