Clip Sweeper: Tidy Drives, Keep Your Head

For those who don’t know the tool: Clip Sweeper is Leland Dutcher’s Mac utility for reviewing unused footage across Premiere Pro projects and DaVinci Resolve metadata exports. It helps editors inspect media before moving, transcoding or deleting it. Think of it as a torch for the storage cupboard. Who gets to throw things out remains a human decision.

We know the culprit.

We all know someone whose drives have become a retirement village for footage. There are takes nobody remembers shooting, folders with no apparent next of kin, and something called FINAL_FINAL_USE_THIS_OLD whose continued existence now feels like a family heirloom. One of these messy people looks back at me from the bathroom mirror every morning. I would ask him what half this stuff is, but he has a toothbrush in his mouth and a long history of changing the subject.

Clip Sweeper gives that familiar media-management problem somewhere to start. Its 2.3 release adds control over which sequences count as usage, alongside content-based duplicate detection. Before another hard drive joins the little blinking congregation under the desk, you can establish what your projects actually reference. Some files may deserve a cheaper home. Some may deserve a farewell. “We have always kept it” can finally be invited to bring supporting documents.

Unused is a finding, not permission

Here is the warning, before anybody gets enthusiastic: do not delete production footage willy-nilly. If you are not the supervisor or the person explicitly responsible for media retention, use this with the greatest caution. Reviewing and staging candidates is one job; authorising deletion is another. Bring the findings to the responsible supervisor and agree the exact scope before changing anything on a shared production drive. A button labelled Delete is not a promotion.

Even the supervisor needs more than a usage count. Include every relevant project and version, check future deliverables and the team’s retention requirements, and verify that anything which must remain recoverable has a separate, working backup. A shot can be absent from today’s cut and still be tomorrow’s pickup substitute. A project the app never saw cannot contribute evidence. The software can help with the inventory; it cannot know what a producer promised over lunch.

Look across projects, then look at the footage

Clip Sweeper aggregates references across imported Premiere projects, including linked After Effects compositions. The important word is imported. A file used by another loaded project is protected by that cross-check, but the scan is not an omniscient survey of every edit in the company. Analysis runs locally, and the app reads project files without rewriting them.

Its demonstration walkthrough combines scrubbable Cards, a sortable Table and a storage Map. Cards let you recognise the shot; the Map reveals which apparently innocent folder has been eating for six. Selected files enter a virtual bin first, so staging alone leaves the originals untouched. Protected folders keep shared libraries out of cleanup, while an audit log records operations. You can assemble a considered shortlist instead of hovering over OLD_FINAL with the expression of someone trying to remember whether they left the oven on.

The timeline rules deserve adult supervision

A dailies sequence can make an entire camera card look gainfully employed, even if none of it survived the edit. Version 2.3 addresses this with substring rules for sequence names: Auto-ignore can stop dailies or stringouts from counting as usage, while Always protect keeps matching sequences in the calculation. Individual overrides are stored per project, protection takes precedence, and usage that cannot be attributed to a specific sequence remains counted. Those are useful controls, but the retention decision is still yours. A stringout does not lose its value because a naming rule has handed it a tiny redundancy notice.

Duplicate detection also moves beyond matching filenames, using partial content signatures and full hashing when needed. Two camera cards can both contain A001_C003.mov without containing the same shot. Camera counters are perfectly happy to introduce their seventeenth unrelated A001_C003 to the party; somebody else has to check the ID. Comparing content is a much sounder basis for the conversation.

Resolve takes a different route

The Resolve workflow starts with a Smart Bin filtered to Usage = 0. Export the selected clips’ metadata as a CSV and import that into Clip Sweeper. It uses File Name and Clip Directory to locate the media, then provides the same preview and staging workflow. These entries are labelled “DaVinci CSV” rather than “Unused”.

That matters: Resolve’s usage count covers the exporting project’s timelines. It does not establish whether another Resolve project uses the same files. Treat the CSV as a candidate list to reconcile against the wider production. “Nobody used this” and “nobody in this particular room used this” are different statements, however confidently the zero sits there with its little hands folded.

Smaller is not the same as original

The virtual bin offers Restore All, Move to Trash, Move to Folder, Transcode & Replace and Delete Permanently. Moving to a folder retains the directory structure; permanent deletion bypasses the Trash and requires a typed confirmation. Choose the action for the retention decision already made, rather than allowing the most satisfying-looking space figure to make it for you.

Transcode & Replace re-encodes to HEVC and verifies the result before replacing the source. That may suit footage retained for reference, but it is not a reversible compression of a camera original. Do not assume it preserves the original’s codec, RAW adjustment latitude, metadata or finishing suitability. Judge the result against the intended future use and keep the source separately wherever that matters. A smaller file can be a sensible compromise; it should be a deliberate one.

A little arithmetic before another drive

Of course, keeping absolutely everything has its own invoice. Reclaiming space on an existing hard drive will not make the retailer send a thank-you cheque, but it can postpone the next capacity purchase. Cloud storage billed by volume can keep charging for that abandoned B-roll long after everyone has forgotten the shoot; reducing retained data can lower the bill once retention and versioning rules allow it. The cloud has many virtues. Forgetting to charge rent is rarely one of them.

For a concrete reference, Backblaze currently lists B2 storage from US$6.95 per TB per month. At that headline rate, 1 TB less billable storage represents US$83.40 over twelve months, before other applicable charges. That is an illustration, not a Clip Sweeper savings forecast or a claim that it cleans B2 buckets directly. Compare the actual capacity saved with review time and the value of keeping the material. Moving worthwhile footage to a cheaper tier can be the better answer, a subject explored in DP’s interview with Quantum’s Hugues Meyrath on disk, flash and tape.

Try the inventory before buying the broom

Scanning, previewing and staging are free without a time limit. Cleanup actions cost US$19.99 once via the direct perpetual licence; the US Mac App Store listing also shows a US$19.99 unlock. The app requires macOS 14 or later. The developer documents version 2.3 for the direct release, while the App Store listing checked for this article displays 2.2.0, so check the build if the new sequence rules are the reason you are downloading.

For our acquaintance in the bathroom mirror, the free scan seems an excellent place to begin. Let him finish brushing, take an inventory and bring the responsible person a sensible proposal. With luck, the next drive purchase can wait and the cupboard will stop breeding USB cables. Just keep the ambition in proportion: we are aiming for a tidier archive, not the cleanest missing-footage report the supervisor has ever received.