Managing Projects in DaVinci Resolve – Backups, Exports and Archives

Unlike Final Cut or Premiere, DaVinci Resolve does not store libraries (Final Cut) or projects (Premiere) as separate files. Instead, they are managed from a central database called a Library.

Libraries can be stored locally (fastest), on a server (best for collaboration), or the cloud (best for remote work). Libraries can stored multiple projects and have their own media management features.

However, there are times when you need to save a specific project. Resolve provides three ways to do this:

• Backup
• Export
• Archive

PROJECT BACKUPS

Backups are used for incremental saves while editing, such that if your current edit goes woefully astray, you can quickly restore from a backup without losing a lot of work.

To enable backups, go to DaVinci Resolve > Preferences > User > Project Save and Load.

• Live save. When enabled, like Final Cut Pro, Resolve saves all changes as soon as you make them. This means you don’t need to keep typing Cmd + S. Enabling Live Save is a good thing and can prevent data loss. The main reason to turn it off is if you are doing a demo and you don’t want your changes saved to the demo project.
• Project backups. This enables backing up your project.
• Timeline backups. This enables backing up timelines.

You can set how often backups are created, how long they are stored and where the backup files are located. This screen shot illustrates my settings.

To restore from a backup, open the Project Manager (shortcut: Shift + 1), then right-click on the project you want to restore (top red arrow) and choose Project Backups (bottom red arrow) from the menu.

All backups are listed with the most recent on top. Select the version you want to restore, then click Load.

Give this new file a name – or accept the default.

The restored copy loads as a separate file and is displayed in the Project Manager next to the original project.

Feel free to experiment with this. You can’t hurt anything by restoring a backup to an existing project. It is always loaded as a separate file.

NOTE: Depending upon when the backup was made, it probably won’t contain all your latest changes. But it will save all your work up to the moment the backup was created.

EXPORT A PROJECT

Exporting a project is useful when you want to share it with another Resolve editor.

HOWEVER! Exporting a project does NOT include media, it merely links to where that media is stored. For example, I exported a project for a recent webinar. The source files for the webinar were more than 1.2 TB, however, the exported Project file was only 438 KB! Clearly, no media was included.

To export a project, go to the Project Manager, right-click on the project you want to export and choose Export Project (second from top red arrow).

Give the file a name and click Save.

To import a project, right-click anywhere in the Project Manager and choose Import Project.

If there’s a project with the same name already active, this dialog allows you to change the name.

Importing a project that already exists does not erase the current project, as you can see in this screen shot.

Exporting is best when you want to share a project between editors and both editors have access to the same media in the same location; i.e. it’s stored on a local server.

ARCHIVING A PROJECT

Archiving is the best option when you want to preserve a project for the long term. This saves all timelines, edits, effects and media in one, self-contained file.

The only disadvantages are that an archive file is VERY big – depending on the size of the media in the project, and creating it can take a while. For example, creating an archive of a 1.2 TB project took about ten minutes. Durations are dependent on the size of your project and the speed of your storage.

NOTE: On my system, Resolve saved data around 2.3 GB/second.

To archive a project, right-click anywhere in the Project Manager and choose Export Project Archive (second red arrow from bottom).

In this dialog, specify what you want to save. For archives, I don’t save render files or proxy media because both can be recreated by Resolve if/when you restore the archive.

An exported project is a single file. An archived project is a folder.

The archive folder contains an export of the project file, plus a folder containing a copy of all the media used by that project. If media is stored in multiple locations, the copies are all consolidated into this one folder.

As for size, as you can see here, the project file is 434 KB while the archive is 1.04 TB!

SUMMARY

Resolve provides a number of ways to protect, share and save projects. Which you choose depends upon what you need to do with it.

Personally, I enable live backups, then archive projects after they’ve been done and approved. I then store these self-contained archives on a spinning hard drive so that my high-speed storage is reserved for current projects.