Shared and independent nest copies

A nest clip is a view of a nest, not the nest itself. Two clips can show one nest, so an edit inside it reaches both. This page covers which copies share their contents, how to get one that doesn’t, and what a trim does to a nest clip.

Menu: Edit ▸ DuplicateEdit ▸ CopyEdit ▸ PasteClip ▸ SplitClip ▸ Un-nestClip ▸ Nest
Keys: ⌘D⌘C⌘V⌘T⇧⌘G⌘G
Where: ⌥-drag a nest clip
Agent tools: duplicatesplitpasteunnestnest

Shared copies

These all leave you with clips that show one nest:

Do this	You get
Edit ▸ Duplicate (`⌘D`)	A second clip showing the same nest, straight after the selection.
`⌥`-drag a nest clip	A second clip showing the same nest, where you drop it.
Clip ▸ Split (`⌘T`)	Two clips showing the same nest, cut at the playhead.

Open any of them and edit, and every clip showing that nest changes.

Only the contents are shared. Each nest clip keeps its own place on the timeline, its own length, and its own position, scale, opacity, fades and volume.

Un-nesting one clip gives you its contents as ordinary clips and leaves the others showing the nest. The nest goes when you un-nest the last clip that shows it.

Make an independent copy

To get a copy you can edit on its own, select the nest clip, press ⌘C, move the playhead and press ⌘V. The pasted clip shows a nest of its own, with its own copy of every nest inside it, so editing it leaves the original alone. Edit ▸ Cut carries the nest in the same way, and a paste into another project brings the nest and its files with it. Clips pasted together that showed one nest share their new one.

You can also turn a duplicate back into clips and nest them again, without the clipboard.

Select the nest clip and press ⌘D. The selection stays on the original.
Click the new copy, then press ⇧⌘G to un-nest it. Its contents come out as ordinary clips, all selected.
Press ⌘G. Those clips become a new nest of their own.

Un-nesting drops the copy’s own position, scale, opacity, fades and volume, so set those again on the new nest clip. The new nest also takes the project’s current size, which may differ from the original’s. Un-nesting gives back everything in the nest, so a trim on the copy is gone too.

This separates one level. A nest clip among the contents still shows the same inner nest as the original, so an edit inside that inner nest reaches both. Un-nest it too, before step 3, if you need it separate.

Trim a nest clip

Trimming a nest clip changes how much of the nest plays. It never cuts anything out of the nest. The clip always plays from the nest’s first frame for as long as the clip lasts, which makes its two edges behave differently from a media clip’s:

Drag	What happens
The end edge in	The tail of the nest is hidden.
The end edge out	More of the nest plays. Past the end of the contents, the clip shows nothing. The contents set no limit on how far you can drag.
The start edge later	The clip starts later and the whole nest moves later with it. The opening still plays, and the tail is what gets hidden.
The start edge earlier	The nest moves earlier with it, and more of the tail plays.

So you can’t hide a nest’s opening with a trim. To do that, open the nest and edit inside it, which changes every clip showing the nest.

Clip ▸ Un-nest (⇧⌘G) gives back everything, however short the clip was trimmed. Hidden clips come back where they sit in the nest, counted from the nest clip’s start, even past the clip’s end. One that would then collide with what’s after it goes on a new track in front.

With an agent

An agent makes the independent copy as Paste does. paste makes a separate nest when it’s given the nest’s contents as well as the clip, with every level inside it, in the form Copy writes, and editing the copy leaves the original alone. See Tools: copying and nesting.