Why Final Cut Pro is hard to back up
A Final Cut Pro Library is a .fcpbundle package — a directory the Finder displays as a single file. Inside it, Events hold original media, Projects hold edits, and render caches hold gigabytes of background-rendered proxies and optimized media that can be rebuilt from the source clips. Generic backup tools either skip the bundle because it looks opaque, or they copy every byte of it every night, including the render cache that changes every time you scrub the timeline. Either way you lose. A good backup of Final Cut needs to treat the bundle as a directory, capture the timeline history, and leave the derivatives alone.
How macup handles it
macup walks into .fcpbundle packages and treats them as the directories they are. Events, Projects, and the original media inside them are fingerprinted file by file. When you move a clip, rename a Project, or save a new version, only the changed chunks are uploaded — the rest of the library is deduplicated against the last snapshot.
Render caches, proxy media, and optimized media are excluded by default. Those directories churn constantly and Final Cut regenerates them on demand. Backing them up triples your storage bill and slows the agent down for no recoverable value. The exclude rules are per-backup-set, so if you genuinely want to capture optimized media on a short-term destination, you can turn that on for one set and leave it off for the archive.
Continuous backup watches the Library while you edit. macup debounces the filesystem events so a save-scrub-save cycle produces one snapshot, not fifty. Every snapshot is AES-256 encrypted on the Mac before it leaves the machine.
Recommended policy
A backup set configured like this covers the important things and skips the regeneratable ones:
name: Final Cut Pro libraries
include:
- ~/Movies/Final Cut Projects
- ~/Movies/Final Cut Backups
- ~/Movies/*.fcpbundle
exclude:
- "**/Render Files/**"
- "**/Proxy Media/**"
- "**/Optimized Media/**"
- "**/Transcoded Media/**"
- "**/Audio Render Files/**"
- "**/CurrentVersion.fcpevent/**"
schedule:
mode: continuous
debounceSeconds: 120
quietHours: 02:00-06:00
destination: macup-cloud
retention:
daily: 30
weekly: 26
monthly: 24Tune further in the macup dashboard per destination.
What you get back
Open the dashboard, pick the Library, and scroll the timeline back to Thursday morning before the client call. Restore the whole .fcpbundle or pull a single Project out of it. The restored Library opens in Final Cut Pro with the same Events, the same edit history, and the same markers — render caches rebuild on first playback.