Files saving to computer instead of hard drive

Hello everyone.

I currently have about 20 projects that I have completed and need to keep and be able to edit in the future if need be. Here is my problem - they are all saving to my computer instead of my hard drive. In my movies folder there is one little purple icon that reads untitled and is 878 GB. My computer is completely full and I can't do anything further. So, here is my question - how to I transfer them individually into the correct folders onto my hard drive? Also, I would like to fix the problem so that are saved on the external hard drive and not my computer.

Thanks for your help in advance.

Andrea

Hi Andrea,

The purple icon is your Library. And if it is on your system drive that's because you have put it there. When you create a new Library you get the choice to store it on any drive you wish.

Now to move this Library to an external drive just launch FCP X and select the Library. Then in the Inspector click the Consolidate button. Most probably you will get a message that there is nothing to consolidate. Anyway, once this is done you can copy the Library from your Movies folder to the external drive. Once it is on the external drive, launch FCP X and open that Library just to check if everything is okay. If it is, you can delete the original Library from your computer.

- Ronny

Thanks so much!

One other question - my external hard drive doesn't show up within Final Cut Pro X. I watched a video and it said something about disk utilities - but that required me to delete all the contents already on my external hard drive and I don't want to do that. Also, the with the library- I have several events within the library that I would like to put in separate folders rather than just one "library". Is there a way to do this?

If your external drive doesn't show up in FCP X this means there is something wrong with it. Probably the drive has been formatted in a Windows file structure (FAT). If this is the case you never should use this drive with FCP X. The only way to re-format a drive is to erase it. If you don't want to do this you should get another drive that has been properly formatted (HFS+).

Once the Library has been copied to the external drive it is very easy to put every Event from that Library in a separate Library. First move the Library to a properly formatted external drive, then post back so we can tell you how to split the Library into different project Libraries.

- Ronny

When I click on consolidate files and leave the "untitled" in there for them to consolidate to - it says there is not enough space. Can I consolidate them to my external hard drive and then move the library from my computer into the same folder where I consolidated everything?

Yes you can. Do you have a properly formatted external drive to work with?

- Ronny

Yes, I think so. I have a brand new 1 terabyte external hard drive. My library which is in my movie folder on my computer is 878 GB (that's what I need to transfer over and I also need enough space for the consolidated files. Will it work do you think? Do I just watch that a video on how to format my new terabyte to be able to work with final cut pro x?

No, that won't be enough to hold everything because the external drive will be nearly full and that's a recipe for disaster. You will need a 2 Terabyte drive to move your work from your computer, or two 1TB drives.

To format a drive to HFS+: open Disk Utility, select the drive and choose Erase. In the Erase window you will be able to chose how the drive will be formatted. Just select MacOS Extended (HFS+).

If you want to move each Event into a separate Library on the external drive(s) you don't need to Consolidate first.
Just make sure you have the correct drive(s) to work with and you can do everything right from within FCP X. This is how you do it:

Connect the empty external drive(s) to your system.
Launch FCP X and select an Event.
Then choose File > Copy Event to Library > New Library... This will open a window.
In this window select the external drive where you want to store the new Library, enter a name (the name of the Event) and press OK. This will create a new Library and only the Event you have selected will be copied into this new Library.

When this is done just do the same for every Event and you will have every Event stored inside a separate Library on your external hard drive(s).

- Ronny

Sounds easy enough! I will have to go get another external drive this week. Thank you so much for your help!

My pleasure

- Ronny