Apple Final Cut Pro 7 - Manual (Page 1501)

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.
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.
Restoring Autosaved Projects
If you’re working on your project and decide you want to go back to an earlier autosaved
version, you can use the Restore Project command. Restore Project allows you to choose
from all of the available autosaved versions of the currently active project, based on the
time and date they were created.
For example: Your client saw the newest cut of a project and didn’t like it. If you know
that the client liked a version created on the morning of July 31, 2005, you can use the
Restore Project command to open the autosave file that was created closest to that time.
This way you can restore the project to a version that you know your client liked.
To restore a previously autosaved project
1 Click a project’s tab in the Browser or Timeline to make it active.
2 Choose File > Restore Project.
3 In the dialog that appears, choose the autosave file you want to use, then click Restore.
1501 Chapter 88 Backing Up and Restoring Projects