How to organize footage, folders and libraries for Final Cut Pro - 2022 

Thank you so much for taking the time to clearly explain and show us newbies how Apples file management structure truly works. I went home last night and told my wife and daughter, "I feel so good, I finally feel very confident how the file structure works in Final Cut Pro and iMovie." I am just getting started as a content creator as a professional Realtor and your instructional video has given me so much confidence to SAFELY store my data. Thank you again Patrick.

Genuinely one of the most helpful videos out there. Took a few watches through and a bit of time to get my head round it but glad I did because it’s a very good organisation method - my precious Final Cut projects used to be an absolute mess but it’s the complete opposite now! Great video

Absolutely brilliant, the best explanation I've found so far. Thanks Patrick

That is the video I needed. Thanks!!

Cheers Patty! Love you!

Oh my gosh! Finally understand it! Thank you so much!!!!

Always interesting to see how people organize their FCPX libraries. I am very similar. I literally have a template folder for new RU-vid videos that a stores all my intro, social media follow me stuff, titles, and end screen. Then I just copy the template paste it and rename it. Then open the library drag footage in and start cutting it up. Nice overview.

Omg Thank you! Now I finally understand how to organise my files for Final Cut Pro! So good!

Hi Patrick, if you have a separately recorded audio clip, plus a video clip with camera audio, and want to create a Synchronized Clip how is it done if those assets are in different Events? I've got my audio clips in an Audio Event and my video clips in a Video Event like you show above. Thanks!

Great video, thanks for making!

Excellent thank you!

Really useful, thanks.

Thanks for this. Great tutorial. Very organized!

Another awesome FCP guru. Thank you Patrick! This answered a shit ton of questions for me. You, Serge and Dylan are the bomb(s)

I recently switched from Adobe Premiere Pro to Final Cut Pro since upgrading to the latest MacBook Pro 16” with the M2 Max chip. This video was very helpful. Thanks for sharing and putting out quality content! 👊🏼

This video is so great. Thanks for helping get nearly a TB of fcp created files off my internal HD! Now I can get this stuff on externals and in the correct folders going forward. Thanks again!

THANK YOU for this.. You have such a great easy way of teaching. One question how did you add the movies clip?

Great overview and very helpful!

Thank you so Munch For this

Thanks Patrick! Great tip! :)

Perfect tutorial for a new starter. I like to be organised and this details what we all NEED to know to prevent future headaches. Thanks from a new Sub

Very helpful. Thank you

Patrick, this was a very helpful video. Thank you!

Thank you this was so informative❣️🙏🏾

Thank you for this. I found it a very useful starting point as I am just beginning to learn Final Cut and am also new to the Mac and have struggled with file management.

Thank you! This was the best video I've seen on this topic. I've made all the mistakes you referenced and have been trying to figure out how to resolve them. And I recently bought some SSDs. You perfectly explained everything I've been trying to clarify. Thanks again

Hey Patrick - Outstanding! Thank you so much for this incredibly helpful vid. I was losing my mind trying to understand how FCP storage works and you cleared it all up for me. I really appreciate your work. Cheers!

Patrick Murphy, thank you for explaining so clearly how FCPX works. Man! You are gifted. Grateful to have found your channel 😊

This is the most straight the point and helpful video I have seen on this, thank you!!

Hi Patrick Informative and very helpful explanation. I was having trouble getting my head around organising my libraries and folders etc. This has helped a lot. Thanks!

Life saver :)) Thx!!

I am new to final cut. This video helped so much. Thanks

Great video! I will be reorganizing my content today. Question for you. How do you organize for graphics and audio effects that are shared across a series? I would like to have them available for each episode but don’t want to have multiple copies of those “stock” elements within each episode project.

I'm so glad I found this video. It clears up some questions I still had about organization even after watching half dozen on FCP organizing. I do have a few questions though. I like your suggestion about creating folders prior to even opening Final Cut but do you suggest setting the import preference to "copy to library storage location"? I noticed I tried the same thing you did by deleting one of my images from the original folder but I didn't get the error of missing file like you did. I think it's cause I had the setting to copy to library. I know I read another commenter saying something to the effect that when you drag media into the project you double up on storage of the media. Thanks.

yes, this is exactly the information i needed.... I've been working on a few projects and it's in a mess tbh! Luckily I've finished those so I can now store that data away and start from a clean slate in an organised fashion, thank you for this video!!

Patrick...I'm just getting started with FCP and had many questions/concerns regarding the safest, most efficient manner to store FCP files. This video was EXACTLY what I needed. Thanks so much for producing it!!

outstanding presentation

Great video

20:02 I have been using FCP for a while. I did not start out with a plan. When I came up short I would organize a little better with the next project. Well, after a few projects my files and copies were all over the place. I wish I had started out with this organization from the beginning. I especially like how easy it is to move the project from your editing location to storage. Not only is your file management system intelligent, your delivery of the information is focused and entertaining. This is something I will start using immediately. I will also be subscribing. Thank you!

One tutorial that actually helped me to make sense of it all! Thanks for braking it down man!

🎉🎉🎉🎉 you are amazing .. Best explained thus far

Thanks! great content, I have been using Final cut for several years and my files are a mess lol, now the journey beings to Reorganize all files.

Brilliant. Having not used FCP for a while . . . read G4 days( the god old days when you organised assets into folders ) . . . this is EXACTLY what people need to know, which gives the user full controls on media and asset management

Thank you homie... you got right to basics. Earned a sub.

Thank you so very much for this very valuable explanation. I have been so frustrated trying to locate and open old footage when I updated to a new iMac that I finally gave up. However, with the information you've provided in this video, I've been able to reconnect them to FCPX. Thanks, again.

Thanks for this video. It is really helpful. I am interested in starting a RU-vid channel and I want to use Final Cut Pro but I didn’t know how to organize my project and this video has helped a lot. Thank you.

Thank you for this! I lost a big project I was working on because I didn't understand that App's reference your files, not stores them. Deleted all the footage thinking I was clearing up my disk space, but my hard drive was where FC was referencing and deleted all my footage. This was super helpful. Thanks for the video.

Very clear and concise instructions, especially useful to me, in my 2nd week of working with FCPX - at the age 71!

Patrick - If I set up everything in the same way as you and I download an image from internet do I need to put that into my SSD folder and drag it into the images folder in Final Cut or can I just add it to the images folder on Final Cut? I'm not sure how you proceed so that it doesn't mess stuff up later.

GREAT video...this is EXACTLY what I needed. I'll need to watch it a few more times but..."THIS-IS-IT". FYI...I am a wedding photographer and have been using Lightroom since its first version.Every job(aka) wedding I shoot, I make a folder(with lot's of subfolders), and create a Lightroom (.lrcat) catalog within one of the subfolders. If I do move the 'MAIN' folder and reference the .lrcat file within that folder, it automatically knows where the RAW files are. I rarely have to 'relink' anything. I still have questions but this is a great start. I subscribed and LIKED.

I’m so glad I found your video. I’ve been using FCPx for about 3 years now and started off just uploading footage into FCP without creating individual folders. resulting in all the footage for my projects in the same library (Not even sure if that’s correct??) and have the problems you mentioned when moving stuff around getting the “ RED WINDOW OF DEATH!! “occurring 😣 so frustrating and it can take ages to “re link” everything again. in future I will “adopt” your methods. thank so much for doing this video I’ve watched lots of tutorials about organisation with footage but they just rushed through the process! you make it so much simpler great job! keep the vids coming take care🙂

Great video! New sub! Thanks!

Hi Patrick, thanks for this video. I was doing something similar to this but your video helped me understand a bit better how and why I am doing things. The only thing I'm not clear on is the PROJECT event you created. Still not sure what the purpose of that is :/

This was very helpful. For me the missing bit was utilizing the media in a project and how to keep in straight ie audio, footage, etc., just becomes a mass of content to wade thru.

Hi Patrick, when I create a new Library, FCP asks me where I wants to save it, so I thought why not save it in the folder you call FinalCut Pro on the external HD. At this point I renamed the folder Video Library. Does that make sense? I just noticed I have the 10.6.8 version, didn't happen in my previous versions.

Hey there! Awesome video! Thanks for posting. Really helps get the project organized before even starting! Quick question… I am primarily a recording musician, who dabbles in Final Cut for music videos.- The video part increased greatly during the pandemic, as I was a music director in a church… having to quickly learn how to provide worship music videos for digital services. I recently purchased a M1 Mac Studio. 64 gigs and 2 Tb SSD internal hard drive. I have been using an 2013 iMac for the last 9 years. Right now, I only have Logic Pro X on the Mac Studio. Just curious… would it be better to let the older IMac be dedicated for Final Cut Pro, or would you recommend having both on the Mac Studio? Thanks!

I don't know why this is so hard, but it's like my brain just won't understand.. and this is the 5th tutorial I've watched and they're all said different things. I appreciate you trying to help though, it was a very clear video and friendly. Cheers.

One of the best FCP online tutorials of its class.

Hello Patrick , I have been searching for this information and so far your explanation has been the most help . I am trying to come to final cut from Premiere and of course it is a little harder to learn final cut whilst still thinking in Premiere . I organize all my folders the same way you explained and also on an external drive . within my Footage folder I may have additional sub folders eg: A camera , B Camera, Drone etc. I see you would name an event with a corresponding name.and then drag those contents to that event. Is there a way to import each folder as an event as apposed to naming an event in Final cut and then dragging the contents to it? Thank You Tony

Hey Patrick. Great job with the slow and explanatory process. Question: Is there any drawback from taking photos with my IPhone via ICloud, and then referencing them all into my project video from ICloud instead of my Photos app? I still save and consolidate my media and project files to the Library. So far no problem. My photos and videos shouldn’t disappear after a period of time, correct? Thanks.

Ho my god. I have watched 6 to 7 videos so far in the library and events. None of that detailed clarity like your video even top youtuber. I feel like your channel is very very underrated. Thank u for this video. I hope you will be a successful youtuber

9:35 - instead of creating new event for different subfolder, what if i drag all subfolder from finder and put into 1 Event, then i click the key icon inside the event as subfolder, what is the con doing this ya?

Thank you for this video, helped tremendously! Quick question, I noticed sometimes the video showed "Macbook Pro" and "Patrick SSD" under locations, for clarification all of these folder and sub folders were created within the SSD correct (the ones made before you go into Final Cut Pro)? I think I followed the video correctly, re-watched a few times also.

Here’s the way I’ve been organizing mine on an external drive. I do two sermons a week up load to RU-vid PE, rumble and Facebook. If knew of others would go their as well. Anyway. I put each in its own library, then event and the project. Series lesson I put in the same library with a different event / project for each individual lesson. Any suggestions?

I'm new to FCP and am trying to get started right with libraries. I'm importing 20 years worth of raw footage from mini DV's to edit and use to make finished family in the future. How would you suggest to set this up? I was thinking of making a "XXX raw family library" with each import stored by year? Your thoughts or ideas?

In FCP 6.x and 7.x (Studio Pro 2 and Studio Pro 3) you could rename the files on the disk based on the clip names given in browser. Is that somehow also possible in FCPX???

what you explain in 11:40 happened to me, not once but 3x...what a headache!! I'm committed to getting my files organized. Question: what do you put in the Images folder? stills, text slides? what about thumbnails, intros & outros? where do they go? Some are common to all videos, some are specific to that video. Thanks so much for your clear explanation.

Hello and thank you for the video. The items in the events section are all labeled by date. Is there any way to change that date to a description? I have sometimes 20-50 items and I usually collapse them, but all I see are dates when I want to go back and look for a certain clip. It would be so helpful to have a description (not a date) on each collapsed item so I can scan them and just open the clips I want. Can’t find any info on this. Thanks!

I do a library for each RU-vid video, but I find myself going back to previous videos more and more to use past footage. Do you have any tips or tricks for putting everything in a master library to make it easier to find things?

Tnx Patrick! Very helpful! Only 3 weeks ago I switched from Premiere pro cs6 (vintage pixels) to FCP. In particular the structure was killing me. There were times I was pulling my hair out : ) Not transparent enough to me but you really helped me a lot! That Apple-thinks-for-you concept is what i don't like. But I have to admit... the rest works grrreat! The oly thing I still don't understand is: why does FCP add a date to the folders every time I import media

where should I save my Motion files?

Awesome! Very good advice, and great delivery. I am a bit confused as to why FCP got confused about the media location when you changed the folder location? If references are by relative (and not absolute path), FCP should be able to find those files. I guess FCP is using absolute? Thanks!

Well explained, thank you. I’m just wondering if you have intros, outros, and other elements that you are using in every video, does that mean you have to make copies of them for every video? That seems silly but I don’t see how a library can reference another library.

Thanks for this Patrick. One question that comes up a lot is when you import media into FCP, do you, “Copy to library,” or “Leave files in place”? Obviously copying to library duplicates all imported media and instantly doubles your files storage requirements. I’m shooting lots of two-camera 4K footage plus external, multi-track audio and suddenly my multiple-terabyte external drives are filling up like crazy🥲 Would love to hear what you suggest. Thank you. Patrick Spahr

Hi. Thanks for this video. It's good you have applied so much thought to this and I like your organisation schema. However there is one thing I feel I should point out because it is misleading. The default behaviour is, if you drag and drop footage (or audio or images) into the Library it will place a COPY in the Library. So under the default behaviour if anyone uses your schema, they will double up on the content storage (footage, audio, images etc) stored (actually now if the drive is formatted with the APFS filing system that isn't strictly true, and it will "try not to" double up on the space, but that is due to some clever algorithms working behind the scenes and not for the reasons you think it is). For the schema to work as you describe, the Final Cut Pro user will have to have changed the Preferences -> Import -> Files: setting. I suspect you must have done this at some point if you lose content when the original content outside of the Final Cut Pro Library is deleted. I hope I'm not being rude pointing this out, but for people trying to understand how the organisation works it is important to understand how much space that organisation requires. I really like the schema you suggest and it makes complete sense. I also happen to think your schema and the settings as you probably have them is also best, because that way content remains easily exposed in the Finder for processing in other applications, so please don't take this as a criticism.

I love this video and it explains this type of thing so well. One thing I don't understand with FCP though is why do clips appear multiple times in your library for a given project. Why doesn't FCP recognise that the clip is already contained in the library? It makes scrolling through footage much more time consuming when clips are sometimes two or even three times replicated

Thank you for the details of the file organizing of Final Cut. I was beating my head against the wall trying to understand how Mac's file system worked with this program. I run Logic Pro for my show and I am now wanting to expand onto RU-vid. If you are able to cover a video of how to slice scenes together with final cut, like using transitions I would really love that video by you. You cover lots of information. Thank you much. Chris w/Interstellar Frequency Thanks again.

I wish I had watched this when I first started using FCP. My folders are a mess

amazing video brother... after years, finally someone had to do this 😂 simple yet to the point & most importantly: EXTREMELY EFFECTIVE. more power to you... ❤

Also, if you have a video on how to save my entire project to a simple 64gb usb-c drive for sharing or for later use I’d like to see it. I’m a bit confused on how to do that so someone else can give me a usb, I can give them a copy of the video project, and then they can play it on their computer even if they don’t have FCP…if that’s possible without FCP. THANKS

So I just shot my first Reading of a One Act play… we had a Cannon R5 shooting coverage - start to finish for 30 minutes for each of two takes - and we had a Blackmagic shooting BRAW for medium shot and a Sony A1 shooting close up for each of two actors for each take. All audio from the one Boom and each of two wired lavs were plugged into a Zoom F8n and we had three Tentacles to create a scratch track for each camera but our Sound Guy couldn’t get it working… 🤬 don’t ask! So I’m hoping that - the fact that these were straight run thrus ie no breaks kept that potential MESS to a minimum. What I’m thinking is ONE Library for the Play’s Reading with Media for each Camera and Audio (kept on my NAS RAID V) and ONE Event because - no matter how much we may mix and match - it’s ONE Reading all the way thru… and ONE Project. Unless there is a compelling reason to break out the “dream sequences” where the Medium Shot Blackmagic was repositioned on the main character at 30 degrees to differentiate his playing of an imaginary character - any advantage to have that being a separate Event… 🧐

This was an extremely helpful and thorough walkthrough of setting up projects. Thank you!!

great vid but you didn't explain WHY you created two additional projects just within Final Cut (Projects and another matching Library name)? why? how do you use?

Great explanation to a ridiculous FCP workflow organisation problem. There should be an easier way! Creating folders first to store all your assets is a solution to this FCP problem but it is time consuming. Not always will you initially place the assets into the relevant folders before you use them and you will inevitably miss some. Adobe Indesign has a much better solution. You crate the document with assets taken from anywhere. Then when the project is finished you simply hit File>Package and the program goes through and collects ALL the assets and places them neatly into one folder. Done! Everything is combined ready to archive. FCP needs this feature.

here comes the boom lol

I've been waiting for someone to make it simple. Well done!

I'm a Premiere Pro user, but I had to assist someone with Final Cut Pro. This list may explain the difference in terminology between the two systems: *Final Cut Pro term Premiere Pro term* Library Project Event Bin Project Sequence

Just to clarify, when your in your HD you're calling it a "new project" but you're actually putting your new "Library" in it, is that right?

Bro this is EXACTLY what I needed! This will take off I’m sure. Thank you for this.

I guess the only real question I have is - how can we be SURE that FCPX is creating these Library, Event, Project collections ON THE EXTERNAL DRIVE and not clog up the MacBook wit’ data that will quickly eat up expensive Apple SSD storage (so Apple can sell you a more EXPENSIVE machine!!!)

Wish I watched this 3 years ago 🤦‍♂️😂

This information is NOT accurate-- not completely accurate. Final Cut by default saves all the files inside the Project, so you can move the project to other locations & have no missing files. Explains this here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-_u-vK2ZN03I.html However, you can change this setting if you want to (to free up space). Then you’d have to do it his way. He does have great organization tips for Events, thank you!

Make it easier

It is a fact, that there is a ton of videos dealing with exactly this topic on RU-vid. And there is a reason for this fact. The organization of data within finalcut is a complete unlogical mess. Your entrance statement is simply true, that apps are not meant to be the instance for storing things. And Microsoft has been clearer in separating storage and apps from the beginning. Which makes it a tiny little bit less intuitive for computer newbies for an hour or two in the beginning. But once you get the hang of how a computer works and stores things, you got it forever. Apple tried to pamper the newbies in compromising the clear cut between storage and app, but in doing that, they created a monster. All this nonsense in the file system in fcpro belongs to the storage and file system. It should leave the app completely. Data organization belongs to a file management app, not to a video editor. Clear cut, hopefully Final Cut one day. In the iPad they understood it already that without a file management independent from the apps every system remains chaotic. And, do you honestly believe that anyone who wants to do something as complex as video editing should be too dumb to understand a file management system independent from the app?

I really do not understand your organization and I am an organized person.

Soooo wordy I gave up. Way too much dialogue instead of simple lesson teaching.