Software » Video Editors » Adobe After Effects 26.5

September 2026 release (version 26.5)

New guides functionality in After Effects
Use the new guides, which support percentage-based positioning, edge pinning, custom guide colors, and improved guide editing controls.
Learn about guide creation and management ›

Disk Caching for Object Matte
Disk caching keeps your propagated Object Matte results even after you close the project, freeing up RAM and speeding up work on long clips.
Learn about AI-powered Object Matte ›
Color labels for effects
Assign color labels to individual effect instances in the Effect Controls panel to organize, identify, and work with your effects more easily.
Learn about color labels in Effect Controls panel ›
Effect Controls panel modernization
Use the updated Effect Controls panel, built on a modern framework, to view and manage effects with icon-based controls.
Learn more about Effect Controls panel ›

Fixed issues in After Effects
Last updated on Sep 9, 2026
We heard you. We have been hard at work fixing issues in the latest release of After Effects.

Fixed issues in the September 2026 release (version 26.5)
Advanced 3D: Crashes and rendering
Advanced 3D scenes that are too complex for the render engine now show an error instead of crashing After Effects.
After Effects no longer crashes when drawing a Parametric Mesh in 2 View or 4 View before any other 3D layer exists.
After Effects no longer crashes when enabling Draft 3D with the Advanced 3D renderer when nested comps with collapsed transformations exist.
After Effects no longer crashes when opening the Options dialog for the Cineware effect immediately after resetting the effect's parameters.
Coplanar 3D layers in the Advanced 3D renderer now match the layer render order in Classic 3D.
The Advanced 3D Renderer Options dialog now shows descriptions and warnings to help you choose render quality settings without overtaxing your system.
Advanced 3D: Lighting, materials, and camera
Some FBX and OBJ 3D models that previously imported with incorrect roughness values now render correctly.
Substance 3D Materials that are in use are no longer listed as Unused in the Project panel.
Offline 3D models no longer lose their Substance material assignments after being brought back online.
Falloff options are no longer selectable for parallel lights in the Light Settings dialog when using the Advanced 3D renderer.
Changing a light's Light Type or Falloff Type in the Properties panel no longer opens the layer in the timeline.
The Advanced 3D camera's Focus Area Width and Near/Far Blur Level depth-of-field parameters now support Compact English references in expressions.
Masking, Tracking, and Object Matte
The playhead now advances automatically after you select Track Mask Forward on a mask path (Windows).
The new Mask Tracker no longer fails to track when the composition's Resolution is set to less than Full.
The Object Matte tool no longer adds spurious Set Stream Flags steps to the undo history.
The Selection Brush tool icon is now correctly shaded and visible when After Effects is in light mode.
Effects and color
Undoing a change to the Apply Color LUT effect now updates the Effect Controls panel, not just the Composition panel.
The Unmult effect no longer leaves a small, non-zero alpha value on fully transparent areas.
Right-clicking an effect parameter to reset it now works immediately after loading a saved project.
The Stencil and Silhouette (Alpha and Luma) blend modes, which had no effect on adjustment layers, are now disabled for them.
VR effects now correctly display their GPU-requirement banner in every language, where previously the message failed to render in languages other than Chinese.
Text and expressions
Expressions that use an if conditional to check whether a property has a .text attribute no longer produce an expression error, so affected text layers render correctly.
New text layers created without any characters are now named "<empty text layer>" instead of "Text 1".
Timeline and Properties panels
Choosing Reveal in Timeline for a renamed Essential Graphics property no longer throws an error and now correctly selects the property in the timeline.
Editing a value from the Properties panel now changes only the keyframe at the current time instead of every selected keyframe.
Miscellaneous
Cleaning the media cache no longer hangs After Effects on macOS when the cache references unsynced OneDrive files.
After Effects no longer crashes or hangs at startup when the AMD build of Boris FX Sapphire is installed on a system without a supported AMD GPU.
Emptying the Disk Cache, 3D Cache, or All Caches no longer freezes After Effects while it scans a large, slow, or network-mounted cache, and now shows a progress dialog.
Improved PNG performance during import, preview, and render.