How can you use finder to search INSIDE libraries automatically

Hi

I am trying to write a plist with lauchnd that will run at a certain time every day, to search for all 'Render Files' folders in all libraries and delete them.

The first problem I am encountering is that finder will not search inside the libraries until you open each individual library, which would mean you would constantly have to edit the plist every time you created a new library (or deleted one)

I am new to Mac and wonder if there is an alternative way of searching for these folders and identifying them.

Or maybe opening ALL libraries so that finder can then search for the folders.
Any help appreciated

You can use a shell script. First find Libraries, then search the found libraries for Render files.

- Andreas

You could purchase Final Cut Library Manager, which keeps track of all of your Final Cut Libraries on all volumes, and allows you to delete render files and transcoded media, among other things. It is inexpensive, easy to use, and extremely useful. Just out of curiosity, why would you want to automatically delete all of your render files every single day? If you are sharing or archiving a Library this makes sense, but what other scenario(s) would require this?

I'd love to automate the deletion of render files. I only render as needed, and if I'm doing a lot of effects and compositing, I'll end up re-rendering a kazillion times in one day, on two or three different projects, and I just don't think to manually delete renders, which take up drive space. So yes, 1- there is a need for this, 2- manually doing it is a PITA and a time waster.

I'd also love to automate pruning my Library backups, too. FCPX doesn't seem to have a max limit, and I've got over 500 for some, which is simply ridiculous.

Andreas, an automated deletion utility for renders and Library backups is needed! How tough would that be?

I do quite a few small videos at the moment involving green scene, Ken burns effects, quite a few still images and often video in video, this creates massive render files. In one day I ended up with 150Gb of additional apparantly unneeded files.

Being very new to FCPX I don't completely understand why this bloat occurs. It didn't when using Premier Pro - so what is the reasoning behind the way FCPX creates and uses these files?

Oh yeah I also do nightly backups, so forgetting to delete these files blows my backup size to the heavens, then I have to remember to manually delete these files before the next backup occurs so they get deleted from the backup as well, or go into the backup and do it. very confusing, time consuming and frustrating when I should be editing and producing.

BenB wrote: I'd love to automate the deletion of render files. I only render as needed, and if I'm doing a lot of effects and compositing, I'll end up re-rendering a kazillion times in one day, on two or three different projects, and I just don't think to manually delete renders, which take up drive space. So yes, 1- there is a need for this, 2- manually doing it is a PITA and a time waster.

I'd also love to automate pruning my Library backups, too. FCPX doesn't seem to have a max limit, and I've got over 500 for some, which is simply ridiculous.

Andreas, an automated deletion utility for renders and Library backups is needed! How tough would that be?

I haven't found the time to convert the scripts I'm using into an app.
It's always difficult to make scripts which run fine in a defined environment (controlled by me) into something which will run in any uncontrolled environment.

But here at least one basic for the Library backups. It's not automatic yet – I need some more feedback. But it's only to clicks in the evening.

Launching the app will search for all backups made in a certain time frame for the current user. You can switch to an "admin" mode which searches for all backups (in the time frame) for all users.

www.spherico.com/filmtools/X-Files/X-Clean/XRB.dmg

For the "Render clean up" I had a hang on one system while it is running fine on another. If you are interested in that one drop me an email: kiel(at)spherico(dot)com.

- Andreas

Going to be testing this out over the next couple of days. Thanks tons!

I have an answer to finding and deleting render files automatically.

First you need to download "Power Manager" from this link (its free for 30 days, hopefully I can sort out launchd in that time.) Power manager Download

A tutorial on using it is here Tutorial

The script to run is

Replace the /Home/RBPY with your user name etc. Home is my seperate partition, and RBPY is the home directory.

The easiest and quickest way to do this, is to open Terminal, Open Finder, and drag one of the 'Render File' folders into the terminal, it will populate with the path, then simply take out the text before .fcpbundle and replace with a wildcard and do the same with the folder name that will be between fcpbundle/ and /Render

The highlight it, copy it and paste into Power manager in the appropriate window per the tutorial.

The script will find and remove ALL render file folders from ALL your libraries.

NOTE:- this cannot be undone it does not move files to Trash, it scrams them completely. :woohoo:

Then finally set the time and schedule in Power Manager and your done. Set and forget.

I have tested it, it works brilliantly and I have set mine to delete daily 15 minutes before my backup clone occurs. That way everything is clean.

If anyone knows how to write code correctly in launchd I would love some help in putting the above simple script into Launchd, which seems a little complicated to me at this moment, but would negate having to spend $50.00 to buy Power Manager. (I am still attached to Open Source!)

Last thing, if I import from camera and transcode - the original mts file inside the AVCHD is being converted to .mov apparantly, and also the high quality optimised media is created. If I delete the .mov in the folder Original Media I get the unlinked warning triangle.

Ben said that he works only in ProRes and I agree that I dont want double ups of files that FCPX doesn't use. so is there a fix or have I got to keep both files on the HDD?

Cheers
Doug

Doug,

The shell script above only covers render files in your home/movies directory. So any library not found there won't be covered. This may make sense for you but probably not for most of the others.
Also the script might not find all .fcpbundle files even in the "home" directory.

To work with "Launchd" there are several good tutorials out there. But you need an app identifier and need to know where to place the .plist.

I've uploaded a "manual" version of X-Render Remove.
www.spherico.com/filmtools/X-Files/X-Clean/XRR.dmg

With the current version the prefs say: "Scan every X hours"
That not true it actually scans every X minutes. It's just a check for the integrity stability of the internal data base.

To remove render files – regardless how you do – FCP X must be closed upfront. Otherwise FCP X still believes that the render files are available. Though i haven't seen any serious issues with that it will be the safe way to quit FCP X.

- Andreas

Hi Andreas

You obviously know your scripting stuff and developing apps, but I have downloaded you little app and tried it, and it finds nothing - the Find render Files window is grey, no files or folders listed. Can you explain what I might be doig wrong.

Also whilst you say that the script I wrote would only find files in that one path, its a simple thing to add other paths as delimited commands. I would have thought that most users would place their working files in one or more discrete places and not all over the place, meaning that to add a number of paths is a one time job.

I don't understand why you say that the script may not find all .fcpbundles in the home directory (or indeed in any directory that the command is pointed too) can you explain so my understanding improves please.

Thanks

Trust me, users place their Libraries all over the place.

Doug108 wrote: Hi Andreas

You obviously know your scripting stuff and developing apps, but I have downloaded you little app and tried it, and it finds nothing - the Find render Files window is grey, no files or folders listed. Can you explain what I might be doig wrong.

Have you checked the "Check all users …"

Doug108 wrote: Also whilst you say that the script I wrote would only find files in that one path, its a simple thing to add other paths as delimited commands. I would have thought that most users would place their working files in one or more discrete places and not all over the place, meaning that to add a number of paths is a one time job.

Sure you can do a command chain.
And libraries can be all over the place, always dependent on the job they belong to.

Doug108 wrote: I don't understand why you say that the script may not find all .fcpbundles in the home directory (or indeed in any directory that the command is pointed too) can you explain so my understanding improves please.

It's just an experience. For some unknown reason (at least for me) the "*.fcpbundle" does not find all libraries.
As mentioned earlier you can use a 2 step script.
Finding all libraries you could use This will search for the exact file types on any mounted volume.
Then filter the result for render folders.

EDIT
You also could use and extend the leading "/*" for search levels

- Andreas