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A duplicate that's
actually a duplicate.

CompDuplicator copies a comp and every comp nested inside it, all the way down. Edit the copy and the original stays exactly as you left it. Tick the box and the whole tree lands in its own folder.

Create your free account →

Free, forever. The account just gives you somewhere to download it from.

Two-minute install.

Option A — as a dockable panel (recommended)

Download the .jsx file.

Quit After Effects.

Drop the file into the ScriptUI Panels folder:

macOS/Applications/Adobe After Effects <version>/Scripts/ScriptUI Panels

WindowsC:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects <version>\Support Files\Scripts\ScriptUI Panels

Start After Effects and open the panel from the Window menu, at the bottom of the list.

Dock it anywhere you like — it stays there between sessions.

In a hurry? File → Scripts → Run Script File… and pick the .jsx. Runs once, installs nothing.

You changed the copy.
It changed the original.

Duplicating a comp in After Effects duplicates exactly one comp. Everything nested inside is still the same comp it always was — shared, live, and wired to the version you were trying to protect.

So you build variant B, tweak a nested title, and discover an hour later that variant A changed too. The alternative is duplicating six comps by hand, renaming all of them, and re-pointing every layer. Nobody has ever enjoyed that.

All the way down.
Not just the top.

Deep Duplicate: Every comp nested inside gets copied too, at every level, and the copies point at each other rather than back at the originals.
Nothing Shared: Edit the new tree as hard as you like. The original is a separate thing now, which is what you meant when you pressed duplicate.
Folder Option: Tick the box and the whole copied tree lands in its own project folder, instead of scattering a second set of comps through the one you already have.
Structure Intact: The copy nests the way the original nested. No flattening, no re-linking, no hunting for the layer that still points somewhere it shouldn't.

For every time you needed
the same thing, but different.

Client Variants

Version B with a different headline and colour, built on version A, without version A quietly inheriting the changes.

Language Cuts

One master build, then a genuinely independent tree per language, so retiming the German copy leaves the English one alone.

Safe Experiments

Copy the tree, break it enthusiastically, keep whichever version wins. The original is still sitting there untouched.

Duplicate once. Mean it.

CompDuplicator is free. Create a MotionPotion account and it's yours, along with the other four free scripts — and everything in Wizard when you're ready for it.