Creating Backups of Final Cut Pro or other apps installed through the Mac App Store

There are many reasons to keep older versions of Final Cut Pro around: you may want to open an older Library without triggering a migration. You might keep editing some projects with a specific version of Final Cut Pro to avoid losing access to plug-ins or templates. A client or a company your work for may require you to keep editing an entire project with a specific version of Final Cut Pro, disallowing updates to prevent workflow issues.

Whatever your reason might be, how do you go about making reliable backups of the Final Cut Pro app (or just about any other app distributed through the Mac App Store)?

First, some important and observations:

  1. Do not try to keep multiple copies of Final Cut Pro installed on the same system, at the same time. Doing so will only appear to work on the surface. You might be inadvertently running into problems that you are attributing to other causes, when in fact they originate from interference between multiple versions of the same app.
  2. When you launch different versions of Final Cut Pro from your backups, do not expect to see the same third-party visual effects and audio plug-ins. This is true even if you follow the best practices for making backups outlined in this document. Each new version of Final Cut Pro may have very different support for third-party content. Older versions allow you to use Intel-only Audio Units under Rosetta emulation, while newer versions only support Audio Units running natively on the current processor architecture. Older versions may support FxPlug 3 plug-ins on Intel, while new versions only support the newest FxPlug 4 specification, be it on Intel or Apple processors.
  3. The App Store does not currently give users the freedom to install prior version of any apps they have purchased. Not only does this create very problem we are trying to solve in this document, it also means you can reliably make a backup copy of any version of Final Cut Pro only when it has just been released, i.e. before the next update is applied.

Creating the Backup

The following instructions are therefore to be followed when you wish to make a backup of the current version of Final Cut Pro as installed on your system through the App Store.


If you wish to be extra sure that all components are up to date, delete the existing copy of Final Cut Pro from the Applications folder, and reinstall a new copy of the App through the Mac App Store. When the process is complete, follow the steps below.


  • You should only have one copy of the Final Cut Pro app on your system, located in the Applications folder. This is your starting point.
  • Open the Applications folder and move Final Cut Pro to its own folder, temporarily. For example, if you are backing up Final Cut Pro 10.8.1, create a folder called "Final Cut Pro 10.8.1" and move the Final Cut Pro.app inside that folder.
  • Launch the Disk Utility app, included with macOS and located in the Utilities folder
  • Select the New Image > Image from Folder... command under the File menu:

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  • Select the folder you just created, i.e. "Final Cut Pro 10.8.1" and create a disk image from it. Leave the default options of no encryption and compressed format:

  • The process will take a few minutes, after which you should have a read-only disk image with a copy of the Final Cut Pro 10.8.1 app.
  • Since the process is complete, you should move the Final Cut Pro app back to the root of the Applications folder. Delete the temporary folder you had just created ("Final Cut Pro 10.8.1") which should be empty by this time.

As time goes on, Apple will release new versions of Final Cut Pro and you can keep backups of each version into separate disk images.

Any time you wish to access an older version of Final Cut Pro, double-click the corresponding disk image. Make sure you do not have any other version of Final Cut Pro currently running. When the virtual disk appears on your Desktop, double-click the copy of Final Cut Pro on that disk to launch that specific version. There are a couple more things to keep in mind:

  1. Unmount the disk image when you are done working with that specific version of Final Cut Pro. You can do this dragging the mounted disc to the Trash icon on your Dock. You do not want to delete the image file itself. You are only interested in unmounting the virtual disc.
  2. If macOS complains about not being able to launch the app on the disc image due to security concerns, it might be because of GateKeeper. Instead of double-clicking the icon, try right-clicking on the app and selecting the Open command instead. While seemingly equivalent, this method allows you to get past GateKeeper through a confirmation dialog.