Export and import FCPXML

Watch this step in the getting-started video, then follow the written steps below:

Play from 3:10 · Export for Final Cut Pro4 min · English captions

Prerequisites

• A finished rough cut showing the Your rough cut is ready banner.
• Any review changes already applied with Recompute Cuts. Export reflects the last computed plan, not pending toggles.
• Your original video or audio file still in the same folder, under the same name.

Steps

1. On the finished job, click Export for Final Cut Pro… in the ready banner.
2. In the save panel, choose where to put the file. The default name is your source clip's name followed by - Cleaned Cut.fcpxml — for example, Interview_take3 - Cleaned Cut.fcpxml. Keep it next to your footage if you want the two to stay together.
3. Save. RoughCut reveals the exported file in Finder and confirms the export on screen.
4. If the job has a Pro annotated review timeline, the banner button reads Export Both Timelines… instead, and a folder panel opens with the prompt Export Both and the message Choose where to save a folder containing Cleaned Cut and Annotated Review. Existing exports are kept. Pick a destination. RoughCut creates a new folder <stem> - RoughCut there — numbered (2), (3) and so on if one already exists — holding <stem> - Cleaned Cut.fcpxml and <stem> - Annotated Review.fcpxml, reveals both in Finder, and confirms with Both timelines were saved in <folder>. Import Cleaned Cut or Annotated Review using Final Cut Pro → File → Import → XML.
5. Open Final Cut Pro and choose File → Import → XML.
6. Select the exported .fcpxml file and confirm the import. Import the review timeline the same way, as a second project, if you exported the pair.
7. Check the new timeline. Your rough cut appears as a project whose clips link to your original footage automatically. If Final Cut shows the media rather than the edit, double-click the imported project in the browser to open its timeline.

Expected result

A Final Cut Pro project containing only the segments RoughCut kept, cut on frame boundaries and linked to your original media. Nothing was re-encoded and no second copy of your footage exists — what you imported is a set of edit decisions pointing at the file you already had. If you also exported the review timeline, a second project with Review in its name holds the whole recording as colour-coded clips. For an audio-only job the clips reference the audio file instead of a video.

Exporting is not rendering

This is the single most common misunderstanding. Export for Final Cut Pro… (or Export Both Timelines…) writes a small text file, or two, describing where the cuts go. It does not produce a video, it does not transcode, and it takes about as long as saving a document. Your finished video comes out of Final Cut Pro when you export it there, after you have finished the edit.

Do not move the media

The exported timeline points at your original file where it was when the job ran. Until the import is done and the clips show up in Final Cut Pro:

• do not move the source file
• do not rename it
• do not delete it
• do not unmount the drive it lives on

If clips do show as offline, the fix is Final Cut Pro's own: File → Relink Files, then point it at the media in its new location.

The Export menu

The toolbar Export menu holds everything the job produced, in this order:

Export Both Timelines… appears at the top, above its own divider, only when the job has a review timeline; another divider separates Reveal Job Folder in Finder from the export commands. Export Review Timeline… is disabled on a job that has no review timeline. <stem> is your source clip's filename without its extension. The two timelines use a spaced hyphen in their names; the two zips keep the older spaced em dash.

The whole menu is disabled until the job finishes. A transcription-only job has no timeline, so it shows only a way to reveal its folder — its exports live on the transcript screen instead, covered in Export SRT captions.

What is inside each artifact

The FCPXML is the timeline itself: one clip per kept interval, on the primary storyline, with dialogue audio roles and the source media referenced in place by its location on disk. Cut points are quantised to whole frames.

The review timeline (Pro) is the second FCPXML: the same job with nothing deleted, every removal kept as a colour-coded clip under an audio role named for its category. In the job folder it is AutoRoughCut Review.fcpxml, next to the cleaned cut's AutoRoughCut.fcpxml, and Recompute Cuts rewrites both. See Review every cut in Final Cut Pro.

The XML Pack adds the removal decision list next to the FCPXML in one zip. Take it when you want a record of why the cut looks the way it does alongside the cut itself, or when you are handing the job to someone who wants to inspect the decisions.

The Debug Bundle is the diagnostic set: the word-level transcript, an SRT of the full original transcript, the removal lists before and after the refine pass, the Second Look record, the cut plan, the frame-quantised clip placements, the provider and model accounting for the AI call, and the FCPXML. It exists so support can reproduce what your job actually did.

The Debug Bundle contains your transcript and every cut decision — that is, the words you said. Review it before sending it to anyone, and treat it as you would the recording itself. If the content is confidential, say so when you contact support rather than attaching the bundle by default. Note also that the bundle is written on the original run: if you have recomputed since, export it before recomputing, because it will not reflect the newer cut. See Recompute after review changes.

Other editors

Final Cut Pro is the primary target and the format RoughCut writes is Final Cut Pro's own.

The same file also imports into DaVinci Resolve (File → Import → Timeline). Premiere Pro does not import FCPXML directly; conversion is required. See Adobe’s import guidance. The XML Pack's edl.json is RoughCut's internal decision list, not a Premiere-ready EDL. Keep the original footage in place.

Menu wording in Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve, and Premiere Pro is set by their makers and changes between versions. Where a label here does not match what you see, follow the application's own documentation and look for the equivalent XML or timeline import command.

Common mistakes

• Exporting with pending review changes. Click Recompute Cuts first, then export.
• Recomputing and reusing an older exported file. Export again — a saved file does not update itself.
• Moving the footage between export and import. This is the usual cause of offline clips.
• Expecting a movie file. The export is an edit decision file.
• Sharing a Debug Bundle without reading it. It contains your transcript.
• Cancelling the folder panel of Export Both Timelines… and assuming something was saved. Nothing was. Run it again, or export the files one at a time from the Export menu.
• Looking for the pair as two loose files. Export Both Timelines… puts them together in a new <stem> - RoughCut folder.
• Exporting the XML Pack when you meant the FCPXML. Final Cut Pro imports the .fcpxml; the pack is a zip you must unpack first.

Troubleshooting

The Export menu is greyed out. The job has not finished. Wait for the ready banner.

Export Review Timeline… is greyed out. This job was processed without the annotated review timeline option. Process the recording again with it on.

<name> is not ready yet. That artifact was not produced for this job. A silence-only cut, for instance, has no AI accounting to record.

Final Cut Pro imports nothing, or reports an error. Confirm you picked the .fcpxml file and not the zip, and that the job finished without a failure banner.

Clips import offline. Use File → Relink Files in Final Cut Pro and point it at your footage.

Export failed: … The destination refused the write — an external volume or a synced folder, typically. Choose another destination and export again.

Playback stutters or the cut points drift. If the job showed a variable frame rate warning, transcode the source to a constant frame rate and process it again — the warning is on the job for exactly this reason.

For anything else, see Troubleshooting by symptom and the error reference.