How do you tell FCPX to find and delete (COMPLETELY) unused media from a project?

FCPX.guru wrote: … Once you import, … those cards get reformatted and used again. ….

met once a soccer-Dad, who used SDcards like 'film' - just once; reasoned: "want to keep the original files…" = shoebox full of cards… :blink:

… true story <sigh>

pszilard wrote: 1) I imported 200 clips but only used 100. - Command + Delete will delete unused (selected) clips

Ah.... please read the contents of the OP and subsequent posts.
I have already stated as clearly and pedantically as humanly possible that the entire blinking issue here is that *there is no function to tell FCPX to select all (completely) unused media* so that you CAN simply delete it one hit!

In fact.... dude... read the *title* of this thread.... sigh.

I appreciate the attempt to help, but it is very frustrating when such comments are made without the person commenting having taken the time to read the contents of the OP first. I trust you will appreciate this frustration once you read the previous posts.

Wow, what an interesting topic and passionate discussion here oO
I know it's a little old now, but I'm am doing documentaries, I am not very experienced, so I'm still looking for my perfect workflow and file organization, and this topic talks exactly about the issue I'm facing now and it seems that it as not been solved since...

I've been reading ALL those comments, and for once I'am happy (if I might put it this way) to see people having the same problems as me...

So, to summarize all this:
- tj7 is looking for a way to delete that aren't used AT ALL and will not be used in the future either. The issue is that you can mark them as rejected but FCPX can't physically delete them in the finder... In fact, if you manage to isolate them and delete them from FCPX browser, then you have no way to find out which file is now marked as rejected, from the finder, so you basically "lost your chance to identify it"...
Also, he point out what is a big problem for me too, the "unused file" filter that doesn't check what's inside a compound clip, and this can misslead you to delete (from FCPX library) file that are tagged as "Unused", when in fact this will create you a missing file in the compound clip... You could provably identify it and reimport and reconnect the file etc but... WHY ?!

Also, looking for a better way of organisation, I've found many times this technique of archiving your project after it's done into another library that you consolidate. But, like tj7 here, I don't like the fact that I worked thoroughly on my folder hierarchy before starting to import my files and FCPX destroy all this organization just to do it in his own way when I consolidate

- Then there another, related but different problem, is to trim clips "Used" of their "rejected" parts... This I've read good and bad things about Worx4 , and I don't think I'm ready to make this step yet...

In my case, I am a nomad, homeless, nooby in video editing, trying to make video documentaries on the go without having a base, a house, a place. I sleep mostly in the streets, with my 40kg backpack since 7 years, I managed to don't get robbed most of the time and even if this means being paranoiac most of the time... I have only one 4TB drive with a 2TB backup and digital space is as crucial for me as physical weight...

I think what tj7 and MsJustine are saying is that, with a mature and profesionnal software such as Final Cut Pro (I mean, it's even in the name no ? ), a software that I love by the way, but I think we should be able to have our own workflow and not be forced to do work the way the devs want us to...

On my last project I have 57h of videos/audio records and have to make 25mn documentary with it, I know it doesn't sound as threatening as what you guys have but keep in mind that I'm not experienced, I am working alone and I don't have house or money... I sleep in abandoned houses and work in daytime in coffee shop, and play music or do juggling in the afternoon to pay my food when I'm not recycling from shopping centre's trash

I don't have a private space, a safe space to focus for my work and spending 2h looking for a way to delete 80 files spreads around my hard drive can be wasting the only hours in a week that I can actually work...

So at the end joema seems to admit the issue and understand the problem, even if for his workflow this isn't an issue maybe, but for some of us it is ! And I would like to be noticed if any of you is actually finding a way to solve it

Thank you

@NoSpHieL

Didn't read the whole long thread as you did, so I don't know if this ancient method is mentioned there:

You can actually review your clips before you import them. You can do this with a software like Kyno, with QT player, making notes (in software / on paper).

But I prefer to do this in FCPX during import. Alright, the preview size is not full screen there (but it isn't in Kyno either). You can reject clips altogether by just never importing them. You can import multiple ranges of one long clip, and only those snippets will be copied.

This is similar to the transfer/transcode - method in FCP7. When you think about it, it doesn't take longer, because you'd have to view all your footage anyway, and it definitely saves a lot of disk space (of which I have enough though).

Of course, you'd import more than you really need, 'handles' and alternatives and potentially useable B-roll that you are not yet sure about.

So apart from rejecting by neglecting there needs to be a second run, during which you favorite. Here is a second trick: always favorite with handles, and if you want to create proxies or optimize, only right-click and transcode these selections.

I'd also archive not the used media, but all favorites. Since not the project but the library gets consolidated, you can create a new project "favorites ", select all favorites and hit "e" before you start the process.

BTW: I wasn't aware that clips within compounds don't count as used. They should be. Send feedback.

Axel wrote: You can actually review your clips before you import them. You can do this with a software like Kyno, with QT player, making notes (in software / on paper).

But I prefer to do this in FCPX during import. Alright, the preview size is not full screen there (but it isn't in Kyno either). You can reject clips altogether by just never importing them. You can import multiple ranges of one long clip, and only those snippets will be copied.

Thank you for the tip, I didn't know we could import only range of clips (only from SD card), I'll keep that in mind for small projects. But in my usual workflow, I'll probably keep importing everything manually and then select inside FCP browser, simply because I'm doing documentaries for retreats, a day filming can be about 5h of video and 100 rushs... And I'm a nomad, work often on battery and in not so calm and secure environment since I have no office or even house... So my problem with the importation window is that nothing is saved until you click on "Import" button, and i would take the risk to do the work several time...
I'm more use to work with a "Lightroom workflow":
Import all, first run to fav, the second run to reject, keep neutrals for hesitations then delete all rejected files...
Sometimes I do also the 3rd run, in this case, lightroom have a great option of scale down the marking, Favorites become neutral and neutral becomes rejected, so you can redo the second step, to get only the best of the best.
Very practical when you realize that you've been to gentle on your sorting and that at the end you still have 1600 pictures for a project that requires 150

Axel wrote: So apart from rejecting by neglecting there needs to be a second run, during which you favorite. Here is a second trick: always favorite with handles, and if you want to create proxies or optimize, only right-click and transcode these selections.

Sure I do fav only with handles, but I use to transcode automatically at import, that's also a good tip thank you

Axel wrote: I'd also archive not the used media, but all favourites. Since not the project but the library gets consolidated, you can create a new project "favourites ", select all favourites and hit "e" before you start the process.

Great great tip again, sounds logical

Thanks a lot Axel ! I start to grasp how this software reacts, in fact, in a lot of cases you need to understand how Final Cut react to adapt your workflow, now that it starts to make sense, I'm quite okay with most of it.

But maybe because of my photography background and extend use of Lightroom, I would love to see the same kind of features, I like this workflow in Lightroom because it let me keep the original files in rejected just in case I made a mistake or need more, but the day I need space on my hard drive, I know exactly in which folder I still have rejected files and I can delete it physically (in the finder) in a couple of clicks

I don't find it practical to sort and decide which clips and sections of clips to import on the Import Screen. It's not practical for anything other than small imports. Large imports of hundreds of clips must be sorted through in a Library, Event, or my preferred method, in the timeline of a project. That way, I can skim through everything in one continuous go.

There are too many issues with using the Import Screen for pre-sorting on big projects. For one, you can't 'check' a box for which clips you want imported; you have to 'select' the clips. So, if you're using Command+Click to select and deselect clips and accidentally click without holding Command, you unselect everything and have to start over.

Another, you can't select multiple In and Out points for longer clips that might have more than one take.

NoSpHieL wrote: I didn't know we could import only range of clips (only from SD card), I'll keep that in mind for small projects.

Yes, it's only from card or camera archive.

Sky Makai wrote: ... you can't select multiple In and Out points for longer clips that might have more than one take.

See above, you can when you import from a card / card copy / archive. For the record, it's shift cmd i and shift cmd o.
You can always select or ignore whole clips though ...

NoSpHieL wrote: So my problem with the importation window is that nothing is saved until you click on "Import" button, and i would take the risk to do the work several time...

Sky Makai wrote: For one, you can't 'check' a box for which clips you want imported; you have to 'select' the clips. So, if you're using Command+Click to select and deselect clips and accidentally click without holding Command, you unselect everything and have to start over.

This is both about saving disk space and saving time. You can uncheck the box in the lower right corner of the import window:

... where it says close window after import. Then, instead of using a new shortcut, you can actually type i and o (or draw a range) and hit return. The import window stays open, the selection is imported immediately (and optionally transcoded or analyzed, in most cases done even before I import the next item). You can make the next selection on the same long clip. And so forth, you got the picture. I seriously doubt that this methods takes more *time*.

Afterwards, you had to manually close the import window, of course.

NoSpHieL wrote: But in my usual workflow, I'll probably keep importing everything manually and then select inside FCP browser, simply because I'm doing documentaries for retreats, a day filming can be about 5h of video and 100 rushs... And I'm a nomad, work often on battery and in not so calm and secure environment since I have no office or even house...

Sky Makai wrote: It's not practical for anything other than small imports. Large imports of hundreds of clips must be sorted through in a Library, Event, or my preferred method, in the timeline of a project. That way, I can skim through everything in one continuous go.

I also import everything for a wedding. Eats up a lot of disk space, but I edit at home, and I have that in great profusion. A month or so after I delivered, I erase the whole Library for good. I also have a pet project running, will take way into the summer to complete and has a lot of miscellaneous stuff involved, a lot of audio too. Here, I use the method described above, because it made no sense at all to keep anything that I don't want. I don't have a script, I use iPhone video in FCP instead, I add auditions to the rough draft clips and see what can be improved.

Did you see Off The Tracks? FCPX originally was developed as a "Prelude" for FCP8. An app to organize and prepare the media, whereas the actual editing was to be done in a grown up, traditional NLE. But Steve Jobs saw the demo and said, awesome, throw the rest into the trash, we'll go with this as our new NLE. So there you have it. Use what it offers creatively.

It's a bit embarrassing, being as I'm certified by Apple as a 'Pro' for FCPX. It goes to show the UI could use some improvements to be more intuitive.
Thanks for the tips. For one, I didn't realize that Shift+Command+I or O to select multiple I/O points within the Import/Ingest window.

Nor did I realize it was meant to be kept open while each file had I/O points placed and was imported, one by one. It just seems counter-intuitive to me. I prefer to import all of my media, then sort it out from within the app... deleting all the unused media once the final edit is exported. This is so simple to do in Premiere Pro, as are custom proxies. I went full time as a video producer a year ago and got into Premiere Pro, and despite some of it's challenges, it seems like a much more fully baked NLE.

I'm also frustrated that FCPX seems to only favor a 3 point editing workflow, while a 'selects' workflow is quite difficult to do when removing unused media isn't easily done.

I did happen to watch Off the Tracks. It's one of the reasons I decided to come back to FCPX for my professional work. But the issues I've been having with it have kept me going back to Premiere Pro. I must have missed the part where Steve Jobs said to release it, though it was meant to be for ingest and sorting!

I think the problem here is not that FCPX is missing feature which shouldn't be used!
More workflow and culture issue.

Coming form the Documentary world... you want to make sure you have enough hard drive space and which very common to grow during the process of the production.

I can't get enough of this post because, I'm trying to simplify my workflow in order to experience less friction to edit...

Today I've changed my workflow, from external medias organized in an extensive folder architecture (in order to add the keywords at import), for a simple "copy in the library" workflow.
Thanks to the AFPS file system on my hard drive, copying the files from my folder architecture and then copying it into the library is instant and doesn't take more disk space, which is awesome!

And this allows me to delete COMPLETELY the selected clips that I want to delete by pressing CMD+Backspace.
So it's a big step for me.

Because, when archiving my project, I like to delete the clips that are ENTIRELY REJECTED, maybe shot accidentally (which happen with the record button of my weebill-s), or the several takes of the same gimbal move to perfect it for example.

So in this case, I'm marking the whole clip as rejected, and this means that I don't even want this file on my disk anymore.

The little problem that I encounter is that, if you use the built-in filter "rejected clip" it will show you rejected clips and rejected ranges all together with no distinctions in between one another. And as I've just tried right now, if you select all and delete, it will delete the entire clips even if a small part is rejected and even though if other parts are favourite or even used oO

But in case the clip is used, it will delete it from the browser only, but keep the file in the library and therefore, doesn't make any missing file in your project, just that you cannot find it anymore in the browser...
This is really a weird behaviour to me, but it seems like this is how the program works....

So, what I do when archiving, is:
- Going manually through my browser with the filter "see all clips" applied
- Select manually each and every clip that is entirely rejected to delete it permanently
- Consolidate my library
- Deleting the external medias to have a cleaner folder and to not keep another reference of the files I've just deleted
- Check my library to make sure there is not missing file
- Transfer it to my archive disk

It's a little tedious but that the best I've come up with, to delete files in FCPX -_-

Don't tell me that you guys have a shooting ratio of 100% perfect files, and that you keep clips that are obviously bad, just in case 😅

I know, you'll tell me again "Just don't import it!", but that's just not the way for me.
SD cards aren't safe storage and I don't always have time and peace of mind to check hours of footage while emptying my cards.
Also I shoot HLG3 on a non-HDR monitor, so I can't appreciate my medias before bringing it to the right colour space, applied camera LUT and play it at the right speed (when it's 120fps or so).

So to me, sorting it out in browser, or even in timeline is a lot easier

Make a new Library. Copy the projects you want to archive to the library. Only the used clips will be copied. They won’t be trimmed but unused clips will be ignored. It’s in the thread.

If you do the "export master file and then delete the entire library" technique

don't forget to do a clean version as well ! - removing graphics and effects (i am looking at you flares! ) helps a lot for future use coming back to the footage - if its branded up that can be a real problem. Also consider doing a clean version export with original audio on all clips (for atmos etc )

i am forever getting footage handed to me by clients that ahs graphics all over it and its an ongoing problem for repurposing footage.