Hidden Feature: Rate Clips in Final Cut Pro

There’s a hidden rating feature in Final Cut Pro that can help you organize your clips. It’s been there since FCP was first released over a decade ago. However, in recent years, Apple has deemphasized this to the point you may not know it was there.

This feature allows us to flag a clip, segment of a clip, or multiple segments of a clip as:

• Favorite
• Rejected

Then, with a single mouse click in the Browser, we can display all Favorite, or hide all Rejected, clips without actually changing any media.

Here’s how this work.

CREATE FAVORITE

Select a clip in the Browser.

Type F or choose Mark > Favorite.

A green bar appears over the entire clip indicating you’ve rated the entire clip as a Favorite.

OR …

Mark a range within a clip (by setting an In and/or an Out), then type F.

Now, the green bar just appears over the selected range.

OR …

Press and hold the Command key while selecting multiple regions in the same clip. Each region is now flagged as a Favorite.

DISPLAY FAVORITES

To display favorite selections, choose Favorites (shortcut: Control + F) from the menu at the top of the Browser.

Each favorite section appears as a separate clip, even if they are contained in a single clip.

NOTE: No media was changed or deleted, this only affects the display of clips.

TO UN-FAVORITE A CLIP

Select the clip, or range, and type U (for “Unrate”), or choose Mark > Unrate. The green Favorite bar is removed and the segment no longer appears when Favorites are displayed in the Browser.

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But wait! There’s more!!

Not only can we “favorite” a clip, we can also “reject” it.

For example, here a vertical clip was imported, which I didn’t want. To reject it, select the clip – or range, or group of ranges – and press Delete, or choose Mark > Reject.

Instantly, that clip disappears from the Browser, BUT! it isn’t gone.

Change the Browser menu from Hide Rejected (the default setting) to All Clips and all clips are shown. Those with a red bar at the top are rejected (red arrow), but still contained in the Library. To hide them, change this menu back to its default: Hide Rejected.

NOTE: To actually remove a clip from the Library, select it in the Browser and type Cmd + Delete.

To unreject a clip, select it and type U. Yup, the exact same process as un-favoriting a clip.

SUMMARY

I don’t reject clips very often, most of the time I just delete them from the library. However,  I do use Favorites as a very fast way to create a selection of clips I like.

EXTRA CREDIT

• If you select a single Event, only those Favorites in that event will appear in the Browser.
• If you select the library, all clips in all Events that are Favorites will appear in the Browser.

This allows you to organize clips into as many different Events as you want, yet still quickly find Favorites when you need them.

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