The MP4 export renders your cut into one flat video file: something to send to a client, drop in a chat, or upload when the edit is done.
Render a file
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Finish your review pass
The render uses the cut as it stands on screen, the same one the Final Cut export uses.
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Open Export → Export MP4
The sizes are the menu. Picking one starts the render; there is no separate setting to change first.
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Choose a size
Source (the default), 4K, 1080p or 720p. Source names the pixel size it resolved to.
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Say where to save it
A save panel opens, pre-filled with the project name.
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Wait it out
A progress bar and a Cancel button appear next to the Export button. When it lands, the line reads MP4 ready with the frame size, the time it took and the file size. Click it to show the file in the Finder.
The resolution options
Source is the frame size your finished timeline is mostly made of, measured on the cut rather than on the raw files: a 4K insert that survives thirty seconds does not outvote the 1080p clip carrying the other twenty minutes. Source is the only option that never throws pixels away, which is why it is the default.
4K, 1080p and 720p are fixed canvases. For landscape footage they are the standard 16:9 boxes — 3840×2160, 1920×1080, 1280×720 — and footage with a different shape is fitted inside with bars rather than stretched. Portrait and square footage is scaled by its longer edge instead, so 1080p vertical comes out 1080×1920 and the aspect ratio survives either way.
Picking a size larger than your footage does not add detail. It only pads the canvas.
How it works
The render uses the same cut the Final Cut export uses, so the two are the same edit. Because there are cuts in it, the file always has to be re-encoded — there is no way to copy the original streams through a splice — so the wait grows with the length of your footage. Cancel is safe at any point; nothing else in the project changes.
Video is H.264 high profile. Audio is the same mix you hear in review: the synced external recording where there is one, camera audio where there is not.
Every splice carries the same 30 ms fades the review player uses, so joins do not pop.
Removed segments are not in the file. The MP4 is the finished cut and nothing else, whatever the Final Cut restorable-cuts switch is set to.
Which export to use
Use MP4 when the edit is done and the file is the deliverable: sending a rough cut for feedback, posting a version for a client, or publishing straight from Snitt without opening an editor.
Use the timeline export when any more editing is going to happen. It keeps every cut restorable, keeps the external audio on its own lane, and keeps your footage linked in place. Rendering an MP4 flattens all of that away.
You can do both from the same project.
If something goes wrong
“Nothing left to render — every segment is cut.” The cut is empty. Restore something in review and try again.
“Snitt couldn’t finish the render. Try again.” The encoder gave up. Check you have free space on the drive you are saving to, then run it again. If it keeps failing on the same project, mail contact@snitt.ai and say which project.
It is taking a very long time. That is expected on long or high-resolution footage — every frame is being encoded. Rendering at 1080p instead of Source is much faster, and the Final Cut export takes seconds no matter how long the footage is.
More fixes are in Troubleshooting.