Library File vs Clips

Okay so I'm really enjoying my FCP X experience so far. One question I have is my Library file on the hard drive (purple grid icon) is some 17gigs in size, but when I open it via show package contents... it's just made up of aliases pointing to the actual clips on a location on the hard drive that I set (I told FCP to create a copy of the media to a location as the source was from SD cards...I didn't want FCP to be referencing them directly off SD).

It seems that the Library file is just a double up of my existing clips and doubling the overall project size for media when really it should be referencing them? Why is this, how can I be more efficient when I want to store my clips on my hard drive off my SD cards - but don't want the Library file to x2 everything!! Hope this makes sense!

Hi Steve,

The Library also contains any Optimized and Proxy media you may have created, and all your Render files. Depending on your project these can make your Library really big.

When the edit is done and exported and you want to make your Library much slimmer you can create an archive of your Library within FCPX, without any render files or optimized/proxy media. Your archived Library will be much, much smaller in size.

Here's how to make an archive of your Library when your project is finished (page 15):

www.apple.com/final-cut-pro/docs/Media_Management.pdf


- Ronny