final cut pro always stuck at 84% when exporting

I am trying to export a 1.5 hour long video in Final Cut Pro 11. The exporting always stops at 84%. Any clue why?

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 15.7

Posted on Oct 16, 2025 6:28 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 16, 2025 8:51 PM

You have plenty of free disk space where the file is being exported? And that drive is formatted as APFS or MacOS Extended? Also, the boot drive needs 15-20% free space for swap. So if you have a 1 TB system drive you need 150-200 GB free.


An easy thing to try is resetting FCP preferences. Hold Option and Command while launching FCP and choose Delete Settings. It will open the default Untitled library. Re-open the library you were working on, set the Settings back to the way you like them (disable Background rendering, etc.) and see if the issue has been resolved.


Try deleting the cache. Delete the render cache. Select the library in the browser, choose File->Delete Generated Library Files... Choose All Render files. Manage render files in Final Cut Pro for Mac - Apple Support 


If that doesn't help, perhaps corrupt media? Export the first half, then the second. If it fails in either of these, split that in half and try exporting to narrow down where the issue is. Divide and conquer.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Oct 16, 2025 8:51 PM in response to veej77

You have plenty of free disk space where the file is being exported? And that drive is formatted as APFS or MacOS Extended? Also, the boot drive needs 15-20% free space for swap. So if you have a 1 TB system drive you need 150-200 GB free.


An easy thing to try is resetting FCP preferences. Hold Option and Command while launching FCP and choose Delete Settings. It will open the default Untitled library. Re-open the library you were working on, set the Settings back to the way you like them (disable Background rendering, etc.) and see if the issue has been resolved.


Try deleting the cache. Delete the render cache. Select the library in the browser, choose File->Delete Generated Library Files... Choose All Render files. Manage render files in Final Cut Pro for Mac - Apple Support 


If that doesn't help, perhaps corrupt media? Export the first half, then the second. If it fails in either of these, split that in half and try exporting to narrow down where the issue is. Divide and conquer.

final cut pro always stuck at 84% when exporting

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