Extract text from PREL files
To convert your PREL file to another format, you need Adobe Premiere Elements or other Video software.
To convert other file formats to the "Non-Linear Editing Project" file type, you need software like Adobe Premiere Elements or a similar tool.
A .PREL file is a video editing project created by Adobe Premiere Elements, the consumer-focused version of the professional Premiere Pro. Unlike standard video files, a .PREL document does not contain actual video or audio data; instead, it is a proprietary XML database (often compressed via GZIP) that acts as a recipe, referencing media files stored elsewhere on your hard drive and recording edit decisions, transitions, and effects.
This architecture is a key problem for users attempting to share their work. You cannot simply upload a .PREL file to YouTube, view it on a smartphone, or play it in VLC Media Player. If you send this file to a colleague without the accompanying source video clips (assets), they will encounter "Media Offline" errors, rendering the project useless. Furthermore, because the format is version-specific to Adobe, older software versions often cannot open projects saved in newer iterations.
To create a playable video, the project must be "rendered" or exported using the original software. The standard conversion workflow involves opening the project in Premiere Elements and exporting to MP4 (H.264) for web compatibility, MOV for high-quality editing, or .MPEG-2 for DVD authoring. For advanced users needing to inspect project data without the software, renaming the extension to GZ and decompressing it often reveals a human-readable XML file containing file paths and sequence settings.
Convert.Guru analyzes your PREL file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted MP4, AEP, PRPROJ and CFA files.
The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our PREL converter.