## Opening ProTools Find the ProTools icon ![[Pasted image 20250118152223.webp|50]] and click it to access the software. You will then be greeted by a splash loading screen: ![[Pasted image 20250118152239.webp|326]] ## The Dashboard Screen Once ProTools has successfully opened, you will be greeted with the Dashboard Screen. This is the ProTools welcome screen. ### Naming and Creating Your Project - Give the project a name in the format of YYYYMMDD - 120 YOUR NAME PROJECT TITLE - Then click "Create" ![[Pasted image 20250118152250.webp|347]] ### Choosing a Location to Save your Project It's important to save your project folder to an easily locatable directory on your machine, or else it can get easily lost! In the screenshot below, you can see that I saved my ProTools project into a dedicated PROJECTS directory that I can easily find later. ![[Pasted image 20250118152302.webp]] Please watch this video to better understand the Pro Tools project structure.