How Come I Don't Get Space Back After Deleting Video Files

so my fcpx project included 4 video files (all edited up), of which i just deleted 1. it was 25GB before deleting 1 video file and it's the exact same after deleting it.

is there a cache clear function or such?

Was it an original, link to an original, optimized, or proxy file?

it was a 146.4mb .mov clip i shot with my camera, i edited it and before importing it the project was only 10gbs, i imported it, trimmed it into 8 separate parts, added effects etc. it was about 18gbs after i was done with editing it. i added another clip, after i finished editing that one, i then deleted all parts of the clip i had in there before and removed it from my events, but no change in folder size.

i hope that helps, i have no idea what a proxy file is.

FCPX does nothing to change your original media. The edits you make are stored as instructions in a database. Original media + edit instructions are used to generate render files (if desired) for quick playback during editing. Original media + edit instructions are also used to generate any exported files. Upon import you may optionally generate proxy or optimized media. As you can see just about everything you do uses disk space.

If you need to free up disk space remove your render files. There's a menu item to do that. They can always be re-generated if needed. If you are finished with the project you can move it to an alternate disk. If you still need disk space I suppose you can remove any optimized or proxy media. I'm a packrat... I'd never remove original media without first making sure I've got a backup.

wow i deleted unused project render files and now the project went from 27gb to 2.53gb. thanks a lot for the help!