There is no Export AAF in Final Cut Pro, and there never has been. The nearest thing it offers is File ▸ Export XML, which writes an FCPXML — a text document describing the edit, with not one sample of audio in it. Pro Tools, for its part, has imported AAF for twenty years and does not read FCPXML at all.
So the trip has two halves: turn the timeline into an AAF, and cut the audio that AAF refers to from your original recordings. fcp2aaf does both, on your own Mac, and this guide walks the whole thing through with the screens you actually see. For the long version of any step, the manual covers every setting.
Step 1 · Export XML from Final Cut Pro
In Final Cut Pro, select the project in the browser and choose File ▸ Export XML….
In the save dialog, leave Metadata View on General and XML version on the current one — every version Final Cut writes today is read on the next step, so the choice does not matter. Pick a location you can find again and save.
Final Cut gives you either a single .fcpxml file or a .fcpxmld package. Both work. You do not need to consolidate or copy media first: what matters is that the original recordings are still on a disk the Mac can reach.
Step 2 · Convert the FCPXML to an AAF
Drop it in. Open fcp2aaf and drag the .fcpxml or .fcpxmld onto the window — or right-click it in the Finder and choose Open With ▸ fcp2aaf. It reads the paths Final Cut wrote into the document and finds your media on the disk; there is nothing to relink, consolidate or point at.
Check what it found. The window fills in with the session that is about to exist: every role drawn as a track, every clip where it falls, the timecode it starts and ends at, and a count of clips, tracks and markers. Press Generate Waveforms and each clip is drawn from the recording it points at — click one and you hear the exact channel that will travel.
Convert. Set handles if the mixer wants room around each cut, and leave the rest on the defaults — standard AAF, one channel per track, fades as clip fades, 24-bit, audio inside the AAF, which is what Pro Tools wants. Press Convert, choose a new folder, and that is the whole of it: fcp2aaf writes the AAF, its audio and a plain-text report of what travelled and what did not. Nothing is uploaded — it all runs on your machine.
- Audio inside the AAF — one self-contained file,
FCP2AAF.aaf, next toFCP2AAF.aaf.txt, the report. Hand over the file on its own or the whole folder. - Audio beside the AAF — a folder with the AAF, the conformed WAVs and the report. The AAF name starts with
00_so it always sorts above the audio. Hand over all of it.
Step 3 · Open the AAF in Pro Tools
Two ways in, and they end at the same panel.
From the Finder: open the delivery folder, right-click the AAF — the one starting with 00_ when the audio is beside it — and choose Open With ▸ Pro Tools, or your DAW of choice.
Pro Tools opens and asks you to create a session to import into: name it, pick a local storage location, and press Create.
From inside Pro Tools instead: with a session already open, choose File ▸ Import ▸ Session Data… and pick the AAF.
Either way the Import Session Data panel opens. Set every source track on the right to New Track — the Match All button does the whole list at once — leave Import Clip Gain and Import Volume Automation ticked, and press OK.
Pro Tools lays the tracks out: a stereo pair as A1.L over A1.R, every clip to the sample, fades as draggable clip fades, and the markers in Memory Locations (⌘5). The session is ready to mix.