# Review every cut in Final Cut Pro with the annotated review timeline

> The Pro export where nothing is deleted — every RoughCut decision stays on the Final Cut Pro timeline as a colour-coded clip you delete by category or keep.
>
> Verified against the current RoughCut app on 5 September 2026
> https://www.roughcuteditor.com/docs/annotated-review-timeline

The annotated review timeline is a RoughCut Pro option on the New Rough Cut screen, available only while Bad-take removal is on. It adds a second FCPXML in which nothing is deleted. Kept speech sits on the Dialogue role, and every removal stays on the timeline as its own clip under an audio role named for its category — RC Retake, RC False Start, RC Tangent, RC Filler, RC Noise, RC Suggestion, and RC Silence when you ask for silences as clips. Final Cut Pro colour-codes each role on import. Each clip is named with its category, confidence, and take group, carries the editor's reason in its notes, and has a to-do marker. With silences excluded, which is the default, the Dialogue clips are the cleaned cut's clips frame for frame, so deleting every coloured clip leaves exactly the cleaned cut. In Final Cut Pro, search a role in the Timeline Index, select all, and press Delete to remove a whole category in one move. Export for Final Cut Pro saves the cleaned cut and then opens a second save dialog for the review timeline.

## Prerequisites

- **RoughCut Pro**, or one of your first five completed rough cuts, which [include every Pro feature](/docs/plans-purchases). Turning the option on without Pro opens the Pro paywall and leaves it off.
- `Bad-take removal` switched on. The option is disabled while it is off, because the review timeline exists to show the editor's decisions — a silence-only cut has none worth reviewing this way.
- An AI provider key, for the same reason.
- Final Cut Pro. The review timeline uses Final Cut Pro's audio roles and Timeline Index; other editors import the file but do not offer the same workflow.

## Two timelines from one job

A rough cut normally produces one file: the **cleaned cut**, an FCPXML with every removal already made. Import it and start editing.

The annotated review timeline is a second FCPXML from the same job in which **nothing is deleted**. The whole recording is on the timeline in order. Kept speech is on Final Cut Pro's `Dialogue` role. Every span RoughCut removed is still there as its own clip, under an audio role named for its category, named with its confidence, with the reason in its notes and a to-do marker. Final Cut Pro assigns each role its own colour when it imports the file, so the timeline reads as a colour map of the editor's decisions.

The app's own help text under the toggle says it in one breath:

```text
Adds a second FCPXML where nothing is deleted: every cut stays on the timeline as a
colour-coded clip (Retake, False start, Tangent, Filler, Noise, Suggestion) with the
reason in its notes and a to-do marker. Review in Final Cut, delete what you agree with.
```

It is the inverse of the [review list](/docs/review-timeline). The list lets you audit decisions inside RoughCut before exporting; the review timeline lets you audit them inside Final Cut Pro, with the picture, after exporting. Use whichever suits how you work — or both.

## Steps

1. On `New Rough Cut`, leave `Bad-take removal` on.
2. In `Cut controls`, turn on `Also export an annotated review timeline`. It carries a `PRO` badge.
3. Leave the sub-toggle `Include cut silences as clips` off unless you want to review silences too. It appears only while the option above it is on.
4. Click `Process` and wait for the `Your rough cut is ready` banner. When the job has a review timeline the banner says so: two files this time, the cleaned cut and then the annotated review timeline.
5. Click `Export for Final Cut Pro…` and save the cleaned cut as usual.
6. A second save panel opens in the same folder, headed `Now save the annotated review timeline — nothing is cut in it.`, with the name pre-filled as `<stem> — RoughCut Review.fcpxml`. Save it.
7. In Final Cut Pro choose `File → Import → XML` and import the review timeline. Import the cleaned cut the same way if you want both.
8. Open the Timeline Index with `⌘⇧2`, choose `Clips`, and search for a role such as `RC Retake`.
9. Click one result, press `⌘A` to select every clip in that role, then press `Delete`. The whole category ripples out of the timeline.
10. Repeat for each category you agree with, then listen to what remains and keep what you like.

## Expected result

A Final Cut Pro project named after your source clip with ` Review` appended, containing the whole recording as a run of clips: blue-ish `Dialogue` clips for the speech RoughCut kept, and coloured clips for everything it removed, each named like `[RETAKE 0.99 tg_16] 32:20–32:50`. The Timeline Index lists every decision with its reason in the `Notes` column, and the `Tags` tab lists the to-do markers.

Both timelines reference your original media in place. Nothing is rendered, copied, or re-encoded, and the same [do-not-move-the-media rule](/docs/export-fcpxml) applies.

## What the exported project contains

| Role | What lands on it | Clip name begins |
|---|---|---|
| `Dialogue` | The speech RoughCut kept — the cleaned cut's own clips | your source clip's name |
| `RC Retake` | Verbatim and reworded retakes | `[RETAKE …]` |
| `RC False Start` | Sentences abandoned partway | `[FALSE START …]` |
| `RC Tangent` | Digressions from the video's subject | `[TANGENT …]` |
| `RC Filler` | Verbal padding | `[FILLER …]` |
| `RC Noise` | Non-speech audio and transcription-noise spans | `[NOISE …]` |
| `RC Silence` | Pauses and micro-islands — **only** when `Include cut silences as clips` is on | `[SILENCE …]` |
| `RC Suggestion` | Passages still in the cut that [Second Look](/docs/second-look) or the first pass's confidence gate proposed removing | `[SUGGEST …]` |

**Clip names** pack the decision into the title: the category in capitals, the editor's confidence to two decimals, the take group where there is one, and the span's start and end in the source as `mm:ss–mm:ss`. `[RETAKE 0.99 tg_16] 32:20–32:50` is a retake the editor was almost certain about, part of take group 16, from 32:20 to 32:50 of your recording. `[FALSE START 0.94] 30:55–31:35` has no take group. A suggestion reads `[SUGGEST TANGENT 0.93] 01:23–01:48`.

**Notes** carry the fuller record — the category, the confidence, the take group and review id where present, and the editor's reason for the removal — separated by middle dots. They show in the Timeline Index's `Notes` column and in the Inspector.

**Markers** are to-do markers on the first frame of every coloured clip. Their text repeats the category and confidence followed by the first words of the passage, so the `Tags` tab of the Timeline Index doubles as a transcript of what was removed.

**Colours are Final Cut Pro's**, assigned per role on import — in the capture below, blue for `Dialogue`, green for `RC False Start`, orange for `RC Retake`, teal for `RC Tangent`, and pink for `RC Noise`. RoughCut does not colour anything itself. Change them in the Timeline Index's `Roles` tab if you prefer a different scheme.

## Silences are already cut unless you ask for them

By default the review timeline does **not** show silences as clips. The pauses silence detection removed are cut out of it exactly as they are cut out of the cleaned cut — the timeline simply skips over them — so only the speech decisions are left for you to judge. The help text under the sub-toggle states both positions:

```text
Off: silences are already cut, exactly as in the cleaned timeline — only speech decisions
are left to review. On: they stay on the timeline as RC Silence clips too.
```

Turn `Include cut silences as clips` on and every removed pause, and every micro-island merged into a cut, becomes an `RC Silence` clip you can inspect and delete like the others. That is useful when you suspect the silence threshold was wrong for the recording; it is noise when you do not.

Either way the review timeline is **shorter than your recording** in the default setting, because the pauses are already gone.

## Delete every coloured clip and you have the cleaned cut

This is the guarantee the review timeline is built around, and it is worth stating exactly.

With silences excluded — the default — the `Dialogue` clips in the review timeline are the cleaned cut's clips **frame for frame**. They are built from the same frame-quantised keep intervals, not re-derived. So if you select every coloured clip and press Delete, the timeline that remains is the cleaned cut, clip for clip. Deleting nothing leaves you the recording minus its pauses. Every state in between is a cut you chose yourself, with the picture in front of you.

With silences included, the same holds once the `RC Silence` clips are deleted too.

## Delete a whole category in one move

The Timeline Index is what makes reviewing by category fast rather than tedious:

1. Show the Timeline Index (`⌘⇧2`) and choose `Clips`.
2. Type a role into its search field — `RC Retake`, `RC Tangent`, and so on. The list narrows to that category, with each clip's reason in the `Notes` column.
3. Click any row, press `⌘A` to select them all, then `Delete`. The category ripples out and everything after it closes up.
4. Search the next role and repeat, or switch to `Tags` to work through the to-do markers one by one.

Working clip by clip is equally valid: click a coloured clip on the timeline, play it, and delete or keep it. The names tell you what the editor thought before you listen.

## Where the two files come from

- **`Export for Final Cut Pro…`** on the ready banner saves the cleaned cut, then opens a second save panel for the review timeline in the same folder. The confirmation names both files and reminds you to import each with `File → Import → XML`. If you cancel the second panel, RoughCut says `Exported <file>. The annotated review timeline was not saved — use Export Review Timeline… any time.`
- **`Export Review Timeline…`** sits under the primary button on the ready banner, and is the second item in the toolbar `Export` menu. It saves only the review timeline, under the same default name. The menu item is disabled on a job that has no review timeline.
- In the job folder the artifact is `AutoRoughCut Review.fcpxml`, next to the cleaned cut's `AutoRoughCut.fcpxml`.
- `Recompute Cuts` rewrites both files, so decisions you flip in the [review list](/docs/review-timeline) are reflected in the review timeline as well as the cut.

The cleaned cut FCPXML itself is unchanged by this option. Turning the review timeline on adds a file; it changes nothing about the one you already had.

## Common mistakes

- **Importing the review timeline when you wanted the cut.** Its project name ends in ` Review`, and it is full of coloured clips. The cleaned cut is the other file.
- **Deleting `Dialogue` clips by accident.** `Dialogue` is what RoughCut kept — the speech. Search the `RC` roles, not `Dialogue`, when deleting by category.
- **Expecting silences as clips with the sub-toggle off.** They are cut out, by design. Turn `Include cut silences as clips` on if you want to see them.
- **Assuming RoughCut chose the colours.** They are Final Cut Pro's per-role colours and can be changed in the Index's `Roles` tab.
- **Cancelling the second save panel and thinking the export failed.** The cleaned cut was saved; only the review timeline was skipped. `Export Review Timeline…` saves it any time.
- **Turning the option on for a silence-only cut.** It is disabled while `Bad-take removal` is off — there are no editor decisions to annotate.

## Troubleshooting

**The toggle is greyed out.** `Bad-take removal` is off. Turn it on first.

**The toggle flips back off.** No Pro access — the paywall opened. Subscribe, or check whether your five included cuts are used up; see [Trial, core unlock, and RoughCut Pro](/docs/plans-purchases).

**`Export Review Timeline…` is disabled.** This job was processed without the option, or before you turned it on. Process the recording again with it enabled.

**The review timeline runs the full length of the recording.** `Include cut silences as clips` was on, so pauses appear as `RC Silence` clips. Delete that role in the Timeline Index, or process again with the sub-toggle off.

**The roles have no colours, or the wrong ones.** Colours are assigned by Final Cut Pro on import and can be edited in the Timeline Index's `Roles` tab. RoughCut has no control over them.

**Clips are offline.** Same cause and fix as any import: the media moved. Use `File → Relink Files`. See [Export and import FCPXML](/docs/export-fcpxml).

![The annotated review timeline imported into Final Cut Pro, with the Timeline Index open and retakes, false starts, tangents and noise shown as colour-coded clips.](/assets/docs/en/review-timeline-fcp.webp){1600x1000}
Caption: The review timeline in Final Cut Pro. Blue clips are the kept speech; each coloured clip is a removal, named with its category and confidence, with the reason in the Index's Notes column.