how to edit videos on a mac with your footage in the cloud

to edit videos on a mac with your footage in the cloud, mount google drive or dropbox as a streaming drive in finder, import the clips from there without copying them, and let your editor read only the parts it needs. keep the project or library on your mac, use proxies for heavy formats like prores, and your disk stays free while hundreds of gigabytes of footage stay in the cloud.

why the usual way fills your disk

google drive for desktop, dropbox's online-only files and icloud drive download a clip in full the moment an app opens it, and keep the copy. import a 200 GB shoot into final cut or premiere and your mac ends up holding 200 GB, the same as if you'd copied it over. on a 256 GB or 512 GB macbook that's where editing from the cloud usually stops.

a streaming drive works differently. feather drive puts google drive and dropbox in finder, and when an editing app reads a clip it fetches only the byte ranges the app asks for. the clip plays and scrubs like a local file, and get info still shows zero bytes on disk.

set it up once

1. download feather drive (macos 26 or later), connect google drive or dropbox, and switch on the file system extension when asked: system settings › general › login items & extensions › file system extensions › feather drive.
2. copy your footage into the feather drive folder in finder. it uploads to your cloud and takes zero bytes on your mac.
3. keep your project, library and cache folders on your mac's own disk. they're small and edited constantly.

final cut pro

1. create the library on your mac (final cut pro expects its library on a local disk).
2. import the clips from the feather drive folder and choose leave files in place, so final cut links to them instead of copying them into the library.
3. for prores raw, 4k prores or multicam, create proxy media and switch the viewer to proxy while you edit. final cut keeps the proxies inside your library on your mac.
4. switch back to original media for the final export.

adobe premiere pro

1. save the project and its cache files on your mac.
2. import from the feather drive folder; premiere links to the clips where they are.
3. for heavy formats, use ingest settings to create proxies on your mac and toggle proxies on in the program monitor.

davinci resolve

1. keep the project database and cache on your mac.
2. add clips to the media pool from the feather drive folder.
3. generate proxy or optimized media for heavy footage, stored on your mac, and edit from those.

when streaming is enough, and when to use proxies

smooth playback needs a connection faster than the footage's bitrate. typical h.264 or hevc camera footage, from an iphone or a mirrorless camera, is around 50 to 150 Mbit/s, so a fast, steady connection can play it straight from the cloud. prores 422 hq at 4k is around 700 Mbit/s, more than most home connections, so edit it through proxies. making proxies reads each clip once; after that the edit runs from small local files and you only return to the originals to export.

a steady connection matters more than a fast one: a line that holds its speed scrubs better than one that bursts and stalls. and when a deadline is real and the connection isn't, keep the clips for the current project on your mac and stream the archive.

a workflow that holds up

• finished projects and raw archive: in the cloud, opened on demand through the streaming drive.
• the project you're cutting this week: proxies (or the clips themselves) on your mac.
• project files, libraries and caches: always on your mac.

see the difference streaming makes in this side-by-side test: the same 1.22 GB video opened in 1.7 s from feather drive, and after 1 min 44 s from google drive for desktop, which downloaded all of it first.

related

• can you stream google drive footage into final cut pro without downloading it?
• how to open any file from the cloud on a mac without downloading it
• how to open a large video from google drive without downloading it
• how byte-range streaming plays a huge video without downloading it

common questions

how do i edit a large video file from google drive without downloading it first?

mount google drive as a streaming drive in finder, keep your editing project on the mac, and import the clip without copying it (final cut: leave files in place; premiere pro: import without ingest). the editor reads only the parts it plays, so even a file bigger than your free space opens. with google drive for desktop, the whole file downloads the first time it is opened.

can i edit videos on a mac directly from google drive?

yes, if google drive is mounted as a streaming drive in finder. your editing app opens the clips like files on a disk and reads only the parts it needs. with google drive for desktop, each clip is downloaded in full the first time it is opened.

can final cut pro use footage stored in the cloud?

yes. keep the final cut library on your mac and import the clips with "leave files in place", so final cut reads them from the cloud drive instead of copying them into the library.

how fast does my internet need to be?

faster than your footage's bitrate for smooth playback. typical h.264 or hevc camera footage runs around 50 to 150 Mbit/s; prores 422 hq at 4k is around 700 Mbit/s, which is why proxies help.

do proxies download the whole file?

making proxies reads each source clip once to create small local copies. after that you edit the proxies on your mac and only go back to the full files in the cloud for the final export.

does it work offline?

not for footage that lives only in the cloud. keep the proxies, or the clips for the current project, on your mac if you need to edit without a connection.