Apple Final Cut Pro 6 - Manual (Page 1504)

Chapter 2 Backing Up and Restoring Projects 21
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If you have more than one hard disk, you can routinely save your normal project file
on one disk and specify an Autosave Vault folder on the other disk. This way, if you have
trouble with one hard disk, you will still have project files on the other.
Once autosave is selected, new autosaved versions of your project are created
according to the time specified in the “Save a copy every N minutes” field. If no
changes have been made to your project since the last autosave file was created,
Final Cut Pro doesn’t autosave the project again until you make further changes. For
example, if you have five projects open and make changes to only two of them,
Final Cut Pro only creates autosave files for the two projects you changed.
Autosave files use the following naming scheme:
ProjectName_MM-DD-YY_HHMM
where ProjectName is the first 17 characters of your project.
Warning: The Autosave Vault folder is not locked. If you inadvertently delete this
folder from the Finder, Final Cut Pro automatically re-creates it. However, any autosave
files in the deleted folder cannot be re-created.
Using a “First-In, First-Out” Strategy
Final Cut Pro uses a “first-in, first-out” strategy for keeping autosave files. When
Final Cut Pro reaches the limit for the number of copies created or projects saved,
the oldest autosave file is placed in the Trash (unless the oldest project is currently
open) and a new autosave file is created. If you’re working on several projects and
you know that one is about to be deleted (you’ve reached the number specified in
the “Maximum of N projects” field), you may want to make a backup copy of the
earliest autosaved project folder and its contents for future use.
The autosave feature will never delete projects or folders automatically. Instead,
files that exceed the maximum numbers of copies and projects you set in the
Autosave Vault options (in the General tab of the User Preferences window) are
placed in the Trash, but the Trash is not emptied. That is left for you to do, in case
you later change your mind about what files you want to keep.