Archive Final Cut projects
Keep a copy of your projects while freeing up space on your Mac
Keep a copy of your projects while freeing up space on your Mac
Even a simple video can involve a significant amount of effort, and the idea of losing that work due to a hardware failure, or having to reconstruct a previous film because you’ve lost the original project, is a worrying prospect. The majority of the effort lies in your editing decisions.
Final Cut provides a way to preserve the database part of a Library periodically – though more frequently than Time Machine, which only preserves changes to files once every hour. Your Library’s database is what contains details of your edits, but it doesn’t include the associated media, so this isn’t a full backup. For that reason, you must keep a copy of your original media somewhere so that if you have to fall back on one of these project files, the media can be relinked to it using File > Relink Files. To configure this feature, choose Final Cut Pro > Preferences in the menu bar, then select the General tab. Put a tick in the box next to Save Library Backups then use the item below, labelled Library Backups Location, to choose a folder on a different disk to where your Library and media are stored.
A network drive is allowed, though you should consider how frequently you will edit away from the network without remote access to it. With these items configured, backups of your library will begin to appear in your chosen location as you work. However, Final Cut automatically removes backups that are a few days out of date. Don’t mistake this feature as a long-term backup – it’s meant as a fallback should anything happen to the copy of the library that you’re actively working on.
Backups
Final Cut provides a way to back up a whole event or specific project. It’s important to bear in mind the different options you had for how media is added to a Library when you originally imported it. Remember that media can be copied into a Library, but that while a Library appears as a single file in the Finder, the events (and your projects) within it may contain links to external media. However, there’s a simple technique to gather and archive all media in one place.
Select an event (or events) in the Libraries browser. If you’ve hidden the list of libraries, remember that the button at the bottom left of the browser will reveal it. Next, choose File > Copy Event to Library > New Library… This will copy all of the projects and clips inside your selection.
Alternatively, select one or more projects inside an event instead. The menu option’s name will change to reflect this context, and the result will be a library that contains only media needed by those projects. Clips in the event that are not used at all by the selected projects will not be copied into the new Library.
Give a name to the Library that will contain your archived events or projects, then choose a location on your backup or network drive and click Save. Final Cut asks if you want to include optimised and proxy media. Clearing these options will save space in the archived Library, but the original media will be copied across; the optimised and proxy media can be recreated from it if you decide to resume work on the files. While the process of copying media takes place, the new Library will be displayed with a yellow alert symbol to tell you it isn’t finished.
In Preferences, Final Cut Pro can be set up to preserve the database part of a Library periodically
External media
What you’ve done so far only copies media stored within the original library, along with projects; external (referenced) media remains elsewhere on your Mac. You can verify where media in a Library is stored by holding ≈ and clicking on a file, then choosing Reveal in Finder to see its location.
Final Cut has opened the new Library. Select it (not an event within it) in the top left pane and choose File > Consolidate Library Files… In the next dialogue, the new Library will already be selected. Just press OK and any external media that’s referenced in the Library will be copied into it. Final Cut will display an explicit alert if there is no external media to copy into the Library.
Cleaning up
The original Library is still in place on your Mac. You may be able to free up some of the space used by it. Select an event in it, then choose File > Delete Event Render Files… (or Delete Project Render Files… if you’ve been more specific and selected a project instead) and you’ll be asked if you want to get rid of all render files, or only unused files that have been leftover from your work. If you only want to keep the project to hand but don’t anticipate referring to it often, if at all, choose All and click OK.
Hold ≈ and click the Library you created as an archive, then choose Close Library so you don’t accidentally make changes to it. You can close and remove the original Library from your Mac to free up space. But Final Cut requires at least one Library to be open, so if it’s the only one in the top left pane, you’ll need to create another, empty Library to do this. Alan Stonebridge