Final Cut Pro not recognizing .mov or .mp4 importing

The Apple Silicon developer kits were released to developers 5 years ago, and the Apple Silicon version of FCP was released 4.5 years ago. Despite having 5 years, some plugin developers have not updated their products to Apple Silicon.

Rosetta cannot emulate an app with mixed Intel and Apple Silicon code. The app (including all in-process plugins) must be either Intel or Apple Silicon. Therefore older Intel plugins using the old FxPlug 3.x framework will not work with Apple Silicon FCP, because that would form a mixed-architecture process.

Some plugin manufacturers figured out a makeshift workaround: They told their customers how to force Apple Silicon FCP to run under Rosetta as an Intel process. That was possible since the FCP.app bundle contains both Intel and Apple Silicon versions, and there's a terminal command which will force MacOS to run that as Intel, despite being on an Apple Silicon machine. That enabled their old Intel plugins to work, but it cost significant FCP performance and, often, stability.

Since it was FCP that suffered the consequences of this, those plugin vendors did not pay the support cost for all the problems it created. I don't know if there's an official Apple Support policy for whether forcing FCP to run as an Intel process under Rosetta on Apple Silicon is legitimate or not. IMO it should never be done.

If I were in charge, I would divert every support call and question involving this area back to those plugin vendors.

If your main problem is FCP 11 import is not functioning, first verify whether FCP is running as Intel or Apple Silicon: in Activity Monitor's CPU tab, location FCP and look at the "kind" column. Does that say "Intel" or "Apple?"

Note there is a difference between *installing* Rosetta vs running an app under Rosetta. My guess is you may have followed direction from a plugin vendor about how to run FCP under Rosetta, which then popped up a MacOS "Install Rosetta" dialog, and now there's a problem. The problem was *not* installing Rosetta, it is running the Intel FCP under Rosetta.

If Activity Monitor shows "Intel", just shut down FCP, wait a minute, then launch is normally from the dock. It should start as an Apple Silicon process, and Activity Monitor should indicate that. If it starts as an Intel process, let us know, and we'll investigate further.

What exactly happens when you try to import?

How much free space on your drives?

Before reinstalling, you may want to try deleting preferences. To delete preferences, hold down command and option while starting the application and click Delete Custom Settings. The application will start with default settings and open an "Untitled" library. Adjust the settings, reopen the library you were working, and see how it works now.

I think I know what the problem is. Your footage is in a folder synced to iCloud.

Put it in another location like inside the Movies folders (instead of the Desktop) and it should work. Let us know.

You’re importing media that’s on your system drive? Please post screenshots of the Finder in column view to show where the files are located.

Where are you importing from, and where are you importing to? How big are the files? How much space do you have? How exactly are you trying to import, and what exactly happens when you do it? It would be good to know the specs of the media as well. Do the files play in the QuickTime Player?

You can choose where you want the render files to be. By default they are saved inside the library but you can select a different location. An external SSD is ideal for working.

And concerning bloating:

1) Turn off "background render" and only render when and if needed (like if a section of your timeline does not play back smoothly otherwise)

2) Turn off all the transcoding on import and only transcode if needed (which rarely is the case)

3) From time to time delete render files