Duplicate projects and clips in Final Cut Pro

Duplicating projects and clips is a fundamental technique in your editing workflow. For example, you can duplicate a project to work on a new version of it. You can also duplicate a project and change its settings (such as the aspect ratio) at the same time.

If you work on projects that contain compound clips and multicam clips, you can use the Snapshot Project command to create a self-contained backup version of a project that includes referenced compound clips or multicam “parent” clips. Changes you make to other instances of the compound clips or multicam clips do not affect the versions in the duplicate, so your project is protected from accidental changes. For more information about compound clips and multicam clips, see Intro to compound clips in Final Cut Pro and Intro to multicam editing in Final Cut Pro.

Duplicate projects and clips

In the Libraries sidebar in Final Cut Pro, select the event that contains the clips or projects you want to copy.
In the browser, select the clips or projects you want to copy.
Note: You can’t select clips and projects at the same time.
Choose Edit > Duplicate (or press Command-D).
The duplicate items appear in the browser next to the originals.

Duplicate projects as snapshots

When you duplicate a project as a snapshot, Final Cut Pro embeds copies of compound or multicam “parent” clips in the duplicate, so any changes to other instances of those clips do not affect the duplicate.

In the Libraries sidebar in Final Cut Pro, select the event that contains the project you want to duplicate as a snapshot.
In the browser, select the project you want to copy.
Choose Edit > Snapshot Project (or press Shift-Command-D).
The duplicate project appears in the browser with the word “Snapshot” and the date and time appended to the project name.

Duplicate a project and change the project settings

You can use the Duplicate As command to quickly and easily create a copy of a project with different project settings. This is useful for creating a new version of a project with a different aspect ratio. For example, you might want to create a square version of a horizontal project for social media delivery.

In the Libraries sidebar in Final Cut Pro, select the event that contains the project you want to duplicate.
In the browser, select the project you want to copy.
Do one of the following:
- Choose Edit > Duplicate Project As.
- Control-click the project in the browser, and choose Duplicate Project As.
In the window that appears, enter a project name and specify the settings for the duplicate project.
If you change the aspect ratio, the Smart Conform checkbox appears. Smart Conform analyzes clips for faces and other areas of visual interest, and then uses the analysis to reframe clips that have a different aspect ratio from the project aspect ratio.
If you want Final Cut Pro to automatically reframe clips using Smart Conform, select the Smart Conform checkbox.
See Adjust framing with Smart Conform in Final Cut Pro.
Click OK.
Final Cut Pro creates the new project. If you selected Smart Conform, Final Cut Pro enables overscan view for reframed clips, revealing areas of a clip that extend beyond the edge of the viewer. You can make further framing adjustments manually using the Transform effect. See Resize, move, and rotate clips in Final Cut Pro.

Helpful?

Final Cut Pro X User Guide

Duplicate projects and clips in Final Cut Pro