Final Cut Pro proxy workflow

Final Cut Pro can make its own proxies, but they land inside the Library bundle next to the original media. You select clips and run File then Transcode Media with Proxy Media checked, and Final Cut writes ProRes Proxy into the Library. That is convenient until the Library passes a few hundred gigabytes, and because the originals sit in the same bundle, you cannot cleanly put proxies on a fast SSD and originals on a slower archive disk without fighting the way Final Cut manages media. The disk that holds the Library fills up, and Missing File icons appear the moment that disk is unplugged.

Sanbila keeps the originals off that disk. On import your camera files upload to cloud storage with a redundant backup copy, the ProRes Proxy is encoded on the Sanbila cloud rather than by your Mac, and only the light proxy lands in a Virtual Folder that Final Cut reads as external media, outside the Library bundle. You switch playback to the proxy from the View pop-up at the top right of the Viewer, under Media, where recent versions moved this control out of the old Playback preferences. Final Cut scrubs the light ProRes Proxy smoothly while your Mac stays free.

Final Cut does not keep a Premiere-style native proxy attach, so for the finish Sanbila uses Smart Relink. You export an FCPXML from the project, point Smart Relink at it, and it switches the clips used in your timeline back to the full resolution originals, streamed on demand from the cloud via a local mount. Set the View back to Original or Optimized before you share, so Final Cut outputs the full quality files rather than the proxy. Your SSD carries the proxies for the current cut, and the camera originals stay in the cloud.