Duplicate clips

Duplicate makes copies of clips without going through the clipboard. Press a key to put them right after the originals, or hold ⌥ and drag them where you want them.

Menu: Edit ▸ Duplicate
Keys: ⌘D⌥-drag
Where: The Duplicate button in the timeline bar
Agent tools: duplicate

Duplicate the selection

Select one or more clips and press ⌘D. Edit ▸ Duplicate and the timeline bar’s Duplicate button do the same. With nothing selected, the menu item is greyed out and the button beeps.

The button sits in the timeline bar with the other one-click clip tools, which split, trim, ripple delete and add markers, text and shapes.

Each copy goes on the same track as its original, starting right after the selection’s span. A selection of several clips keeps its internal timing: if it runs from 10 s to 14 s, every copy starts 4 s later than its original.

The copies are one undo step, called Duplicate.

Drag a copy

To place copies somewhere else, hold ⌥ as you press on a clip, then drag. The copies follow the pointer and the originals stay where they are.

If the clip you press is part of the selection, the whole selection is copied. If it isn’t, only that clip is.
The copies snap and change tracks as a move does. Drop past the top or bottom of the stack to make a new track for them.
The copies need room only where they land, so a clip with another right after it copies like any other.
A spot the timeline can’t take is skipped. The copies stay at the last spot along the drag that worked. If you let go on such a spot, a ghost animates back to them, and if no spot worked, it animates back to the clip you pressed and no copy is made.
The whole drag is one undo step, called Duplicate Clips.

Hold only ⌥. ⌥⇧ on a clip is a slip, not a copy.

What a copy keeps

A copy is the whole clip: its source, trim, speed, name, label, picture and sound settings, and actions. From then on it’s a clip of its own, so changing one doesn’t change the other.

Linked clips. If a clip has a detached sound, its partner is copied too and the two copies are linked to each other. A partner on a locked track isn’t copied. Drag the picture to another track and the sound’s copy stays on the sound’s track, moved by the same time. It needs room there too, so a picture dragged straight up with no change in time can’t land: its sound’s copy would sit on the sound.
Nest clips. A copy of a nest clip made with Duplicate or ⌥-drag shows the same nest as the original, so an edit inside one shows in both. See Shared and independent nest copies.

When Duplicate won’t work

Copies follow the same overlap rule as any other placement, and Frame Job doesn’t push later clips out of the way.

A copy may overlap the clip after it by up to half of the shorter clip. The overlap gets a Cross Dissolve, as any new overlap does. See Transitions.
A longer overlap stops the duplicate. Frame Job beeps, nothing changes, and the reason appears at the foot of the inspector. See When an edit is refused.
An adjustment clip can’t overlap anything, so a copy of one needs clear space.

To duplicate into a tight edit, ⌥-drag the copy to a free spot, open room first, or use Edit ▸ Copy and Edit ▸ Paste. A paste that has no room goes on a new track.

With an agent

duplicate takes the clips to copy and puts the copies straight after them, as ⌘D does. Give it delta and track and it lands them where an ⌥-drag would, in one step. It also works inside a nest. See Tools: copying and nesting.