You can remove a Final Cut Pro project, including any associated files, from your hard drive.

Warning: This text talks about permanently deleting files from your hard drive. Following these steps will take you to permanently remove a Final Cut Pro project and its associated files (even if they are used in other projects or elsewhere). Follow these steps only after you have finished your work and if you are absolutely sure that you want to permanently delete the project and its files. Read all steps before performing any of them. These steps will not affect the Final Cut Pro application, other applications or the Mac OS X system. finalcutstudio.gr is not responsible for any accidental loss of your files, work or time.

A classic Final Cut Pro project is a collection of several files, including render files, digitized files, and the project file. Follow these steps to remove them from your hard drive.

Render Files

  • Open your project in Final Cut Pro.
  • From the menu Tools, select Render Manager.
  • Click to check the box in the Remove column next to the name of the project you want to remove. Important: Do not select other projects, otherwise the render files of those projects will also be removed.
  • Click OK and delete the render files.

Browser Media Files

  • Click on the Browser window to activate it.
  • Select anything you want to delete. In many cases you will want to select everything (from the menu Edit, select Select All). Important: If the Browser contains clips, images, sounds, or anything else that is used in another project or application (a photo that you also use in a DVD project, for example) do not select those items, as you will not want them deleted.
  • From the menu Modify, select Make Offline.
  • Click to select the “Move Them to the Trash” button.
  • Press OK.
  • Close the Final Cut Pro project. It is not necessary to save your project at this point, as you would need to re-digitize all of your video anyway if you chose to work on it again in the future.

The Project file

The Final Cut Pro project file is essentially a record of all the files' processing and operation information. This file is normally small and can be left in the archive for future use. If you digitized your project video clips using Log and Capture, you can use the project file to re-digitize them from tape in the future. If you don't want to keep your project file, drag it to the Recycle Bin after you've closed Final Cut Pro.

Freeing Up Hard Drive Space

  • After performing the above steps, click the Finder icon in the Dock.
  • From his menu Finder, select Empty Trash to delete these items moved to the Recycle Bin. This will permanently delete the items and free up the hard drive space they were taking up.

For more information about managing Final Cut Pro files, projects, and tools, open Final Cut Pro and from the Help menu, choose Final Cut Pro Help.