“No comp” or “Open a comp to yoink it”
Yoink needs an active composition. Open the comp in its viewer and try again. Selecting footage or a folder in the Project panel is not enough.
“Select layers” or “Off screen”
These appear during an Alt-click crop. Select drawable layers visible at the captured time or in the work area. Cameras and lights are ignored. See crop failures and bounds for the exact causes, including Couldn’t measure the selected layers.
Click without Alt when you want the whole comp.
“Queue busy” or “The render queue is busy”
The After Effects render queue is currently rendering. Wait for it to finish before grabbing any format.
“No H.264” or “In AME”
These concern MP4 encoding. No H.264 means After Effects could neither encode H.264 directly nor send it to Media Encoder. In AME means the render was handed off. The MP4 guide covers the fallback and where to check completion.
“Not grabbed” or “Yoink could not finish”
Read the accompanying notification for the specific cause. These badges cover failures without a dedicated short label.
| Message | What to do |
|---|---|
| Yoink needs After Effects or Yoink needs After Effects for this | Use Yoink inside Motion Dock in After Effects. A browser preview cannot export. |
| Could not read After Effects | Return to After Effects, open the comp, and retry. |
| Can’t write to … or Couldn’t save … | Choose a writable local folder in the options. Check free space and folder permissions. |
| Can’t open … | Check the destination folder and permissions, or choose another folder. |
| No output folder or The temp folder is missing | Retry the grab. If it repeats, restart the panel and check that the system temporary folder is writable. |
| After Effects didn’t finish rendering the frames | A PNG frame did not finish writing within the wait period. Try a shorter work area or simpler shot and check disk space. |
| After Effects couldn’t render the grab, After Effects rendered nothing or Render failed | Check the comp and its assets in After Effects, then retry. For MP4, check H.264 availability. |
| No canvas, Could not encode the PNG, No frames to encode or Frames differ in size | Image processing could not complete. Restart the panel and try a single PNG before retrying the animation. |
Other After Effects errors can also appear in the notification. Fix the reported comp or render issue before retrying.
The file saved, but paste does nothing
saved without copied means automatic copying was off or did not succeed. Turn on Copy to clipboard, or Alt-click the existing tile to copy it again. No copy means that attempt failed.
Some apps do not accept a file from the clipboard. Reveal the saved file and attach it manually, or drag its tile into an app that accepts file drops. Media Encoder exports are not copied automatically.
A recent tile is dimmed or says “Moved”
Yoink remembers a path, not a copy of the file. The file was moved, removed or is empty. Locate it in Finder or Explorer, or make another grab. Yoink does not search for a moved file.
In compact layouts, Recent uses dimming for missing paths but does not show the tray’s short copy and moved badges.
My GIF or PNG has a solid background
Yoink fills transparency with the composition background color. It does not preserve an alpha channel in these grabs. Use an After Effects export workflow that supports alpha when you need transparent output.
The animation has the wrong range or the crop cuts off an effect
GIF and MP4 use the work area. PNG uses the playhead. Check the intended range in After Effects before capturing.
For cropped output, increase Region padding or grab the full comp. The crop guide explains effect bounds and animation sampling. If a cropped GIF is smaller than Max width, see the size settings.
I cannot see the tray or format choices
The slot is too small to show them all. Right-click Yoink to reach Grab, settings and Recent, or enlarge the slot in Edit layout. A single format button cycles forward on click and backward on Shift-click.