Sources

The Sources sidebar is the left column of the project window and the way media reaches the timeline. This page covers where files come from, the sidebar itself, previewing a file in the player, the ways onto the timeline, and missing files.

Where media comes from

Everything on the timeline comes from one of two places: the video's own media/ folder, shown as This video, or a library, a media folder of the workspace whose files are used in place. A file imported from anywhere else, dropped from Finder or picked in a panel, is copied into media/ first, so a video's folder is complete on its own while a shoot's footage is never duplicated. See Media folders. Texts, placeholders and subtitles are the video's own and live in its files.

The sidebar

The row at the top picks the source: This video, each library, and Missing when files the video uses are gone from disk. A library opens as a folder, with its subfolders inside and a breadcrumb back. A library that is missing, or that macOS does not let the app read, says so.

Every file shows as a thumbnail at its own shape, a tall strip for a portrait clip, with its length. A tile on the timeline wears a check, with a count when it is used more than once. On Pro every tile also wears one small dot for its analysis: green when the file is analysed, dim when it is not, pulsing while it runs, red when the service refused it; a folder tile carries the same dots with numbers, a line at the foot of the sidebar says how the queue stands, and a library opens in a window of its own from its right-click menu; see Analysing footage. The refresh button reads the folder again; the app also reads it whenever it comes to the front.

Right-click a library's folder tile for Reveal in Finder and Stop Using This Library.

Preview

Click a tile once and it plays in the main player, sized to its own picture, with its name top left and a close button on the right. Its own play button, time and scrubber sit under the picture; Space, a click on the picture and the transport bar work too. The panel on the right shows the file: where it lives, its length, size, frame rate and sound. Esc, or any move on the timeline, brings the timeline back.

Onto the timeline

• Drag a tile onto the timeline. It lands at the time under the pointer on a row of its kind. See Timeline.
• Double-click a tile to add it to the active track at the playhead.
• Right-click for Open, Reveal in Finder and Export a Copy…, which copies the analysis along.
• Delete from This Video…, in the same menu on a file under This video, moves the video's own copy to the Trash, its analysis with it. Clips that use it stay on the timeline and show as missing; a file no clip uses leaves the video altogether. Files in a library are yours and are never deleted.
• Import… at the foot of the sidebar (⌘I, also in the File menu) brings in video, photos and sound from anywhere, placed at the playhead on the active track of the file's kind.
• Drop files on This video, from Finder or from a library's tile, to copy them into the video without putting them on the timeline.

Show in Sources

Select a clip in the timeline and its file is one click away: Show in Sources in the clip's right-click menu, or the small link under the clip's name in the sidebar, opens the source it lives in, walks into the library's folders down to it, scrolls to its tile and lights it up.

Missing files

A file that is no longer on disk is still a source, listed under Missing, and the video still opens. Its clips turn red in the timeline and read "Missing: file", the sidebar says where the file was, and the clip plays and exports as a plate with the file's name until the file is back. Two ways back, on the red clip's menu, in the sidebar, and on the Missing tile:

• Relink… chooses the file in a panel. Every clip of that file plays the new one from the same in and out points; a shorter file asks whether to keep it and cut the clips to its end, or choose another. A file outside this video and its libraries is copied in.
• Choose from Sources turns the sidebar into a picker: the next tile clicked stands in for the missing file. Tiles of the wrong kind, sound for a picture, are dimmed.

Remove from This Video…, on the Missing tile's menu and in the missing clip's sidebar, is the way out when the file is not coming back: the video forgets the file and its clips leave the timeline, in one undo step. It asks first when clips use the file.

Put the file back where it was and the app picks it up the next time it comes to the front. An agent sees missing on the file and has media-relink for the same job; see Command line.