Selects hands off to DaVinci Resolve as a .drp file, which is Resolve's own project format. Your cuts, track layout, and labels come across, and your original media is never modified.
Hand off to Resolve
Open the timeline you want to work from.
Click [Export] in the top right and choose [DaVinci Resolve] under [Handoff to].
Choose your settings in the Handoff to DaVinci Resolve dialog, set where the file goes in [Save in], then click [Handoff].
Handoff runs in the background, so you can keep working. When the handoff finishes, a dialog opens with your .drp file name at the top. Click [Open folder] to find the file.
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
Two settings sit at the top of the dialog:
Nest multi-cam: when this is on, your camera angles are nested into a single sequence. When it is off, each camera arrives on its own track so you can switch angles freely in Resolve.
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.
Click [More settings] for the rest:
Caption language: shows when Include captions is on and your captions have a translation. Choose [Original], a translation, or [Original + translation].
Topic titles: choose [As markers], [As captions], or [Off].
Include muted audio tracks: brings your muted tracks across alongside the audible ones.
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.
Import into Resolve
A .drp is a project file rather than a timeline, so it comes in through the Project Manager rather than the import menu.
Open DaVinci Resolve and go to the Project Manager.
Right-click in the project list and choose [Import Project].
Select the .drp file Selects created.
Resolve opens the project with your timelines ready to work on.
What does not carry over to DaVinci Resolve
Your edit carries over to DaVinci Resolve, 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 in one color.
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
My RED proxy clips show "Media Offline" in DaVinci Resolve. What is going on?
This is not a Selects issue. It is a quirk in how DaVinci Resolve handles folder names.
Resolve looks at the folder your proxy files are stored in. If that folder name ends in .RDC, Resolve assumes it is a RED camera RAW folder and starts looking for .R3D files instead of your actual .mov proxies. Those .R3D files do not exist, so you get Media Offline. Selects is exporting the correct file path, and Resolve is overriding it based on the folder name alone.
To fix it, rename the parent folder to remove .RDC from the end:
Before: …/filename.RDC/filename_proxies.mov
After: …/filename/filename_proxies.mov
Then re-import the footage in Selects, sync, and hand off to Resolve again. Your clips will link up normally.
Cameras like the Canon R5C store proxies in folders without the .RDC extension, so Resolve does not misidentify them. The issue only happens when the folder name ends in .RDC.
Can I use proxy files with Resolve?
Yes. Generate proxies or optimized media in Resolve, import only the proxy folder into Selects, then relink to your original camera files after you import the .drp back into Resolve. See Using proxy files in Selects.
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.