Selects hands off to Final Cut Pro as an .fcpxml file, which Final Cut reads natively. Your cuts, track layout, and labels come across, and your original media is never modified.
Hand off to Final Cut Pro
Open the project with the drafts you want to hand off.
Click [Export] in the top right and choose [Final Cut Pro] under [Handoff to].
Choose your settings in the Handoff to Final Cut Pro dialog, set where the file goes in [Save in], then click [Handoff].
Handoff runs in the background, so you can keep working. When Handoff is ready appears, click [Open folder] to find the .fcpxml file. The same dialog lists the steps for importing it into Final Cut Pro.
Note: With more than one draft in the project, Selects asks which ones to hand off. All of them are selected to begin with, so handing off without changing anything takes every draft across. See Export your edit to editing software, or as a transcript or video.
Handoff settings
The Final Cut dialog is a short one:
Include captions: adds captions to the exported timeline. Selects uses the draft’s captions if it has any, and your transcript if it does not.
Caption language: shows when Include captions is on and your captions have a translation. Choose [Original], a translation, or [Original + translation].
Mark used clips on full timeline: adds a second timeline containing your full original footage, with the clips you actually used marked, so you can see what made the cut in the context of everything you shot.
Keep all cut points: keeps every cut you made, including B-roll and standalone audio, instead of merging neighboring clips that came from the same source. On by default, and remembered between exports.
Selects remembers these settings, so your next handoff starts from whatever you chose last time.
If Selects warns about audio sync
Some file formats cause Final Cut Pro to play audio slightly ahead of the video. When Selects spots those files in your project, it shows a dialog listing them after you click [Handoff], with two choices:
[Fix and export]: Selects exports using automatically corrected copies, saved next to the originals with _fcpfix in the file name. Your original files and your edits are left untouched, and the fix takes a few seconds.
[Export anyway]: exports with the files as they are.
[Fix and export] is the safer choice unless you have a reason to keep the original encoding.
Import into Final Cut Pro
Open Final Cut Pro.
Go to [File > Import > XML].
Select the .fcpxml file Selects created.
Final Cut imports the timeline with your media linked to the original files, or to the corrected copies if you chose [Fix and export].
What does not carry over to Final Cut Pro
Your edit carries over to Final Cut Pro, but some of the finishing touches you add in Selects do not. These stay in Selects and appear only when you export a video from Selects:
Graphics: text, caption styles, and stickers from the [Graphics] app. Their spots arrive as empty gaps.
Visual effects and transitions from the [Effects] app. A transition becomes a plain cut. Sounds you add there do come across, as audio clips.
Filters and color grading, including [Color & Tone] in [Adjust].
Position, scale, and other transform changes you make in [Adjust].
Keyframes: animation does not carry over, so nothing moves or changes over time.
Audio fades and volume changes: clips arrive at their original levels.
Caption styling: with Include captions on, captions arrive as plain text.
Marker colors: markers arrive without their colors.
Multicam: your draft arrives with the camera angles you already picked, not as a multicam clip you can switch.
If your drafts have effects, filters, color grading, transitions, graphics, keyframes, or audio fades, Selects shows Some edits won’t carry over in the handoff before the handoff starts. Click [Handoff anyway] to continue without them, or [See what Handoff supports] to compare what goes across. Your draft in Selects keeps everything. To keep these edits, export a video instead.
Tip: The [Graphics], [Effects], and [Adjust] panels show an [Export only] label at the bottom, a reminder that effects, graphics, and adjustments made there appear only in an exported video. Click it to see what a handoff carries.
FAQs
Can I choose which drafts to hand off?
Yes. With more than one draft, [Select timelines to handoff] opens and you choose what goes across. Everything is selected to begin with, so clicking straight through hands off all of them, and you can clear anything you do not want. With a single draft there is nothing to choose and it goes straight across.
Can I bring my topic titles across?
Topic title options are available when you hand off to Adobe Premiere or DaVinci Resolve. The Final Cut dialog has no topic title setting.
Can I use proxy files with Final Cut Pro?
Yes. Create proxy media in Final Cut, import only the proxy folder into Selects, then relink to your original camera files after you import the .fcpxml. See Using proxy files in Selects.