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Part 17 of 33Sourcing & Clipping Raws5 min read
Sourcing & clipping raws

My Files — the directory explorer

Every clip, render, and asset you touch in VidFarm lives in one unified file tree with five roots. Here's how to browse it, organize it, and attach files straight into a chat or an edit.

Copies the whole guide — prompts, next steps & all — for your AI agent
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A tour of My Files: the five roots, drilling into a raws folder, moving and copying files, and attaching an asset from the chat dock's 'Your files' drawer.

Key takeaways

  • One unified file tree spans five roots: /files · /temp · /raws · /projects · /approved.
  • /raws is durable footage; /temp auto-deletes after 30 days; /projects is your forks, read-only.
  • The same explorer appears in three places: the /library/files page, the chat dock's Your files drawer, and the pop-out picker.
  • Right-click or use the kebab for Rename / Move / Copy / New subfolder — available on free and paid.
  • Move and Copy are same-root only and metadata-only — copies share the underlying object, so no re-upload.

One tree, five roots

Everything you create in VidFarm — imported footage, mined clips, rendered videos, brand assets, character sprite cards — lands somewhere in a single file tree. Instead of hunting through five different UIs, you browse one explorer whose top level is five named roots, each with its own job and lifecycle.

Note There's one special convention worth knowing: /files/characters/<slug>/ is the first-class home for a recurring character — a trio of character_<slug>.json (the manifest), character_sprite_card.png, and character_about.md. It's how a face and outfit stay consistent across generated shots.
The /library/files page showing the top level of the file tree: five root folders labelled /files, /temp, /raws, /projects, and /approved, each with a folder icon and an item count, plus a search box at the top.
The explorer at root — the five file roots side by side. Click one to drill in.

Manual walkthroughBrowse & organize (the /library/files page)

  1. Open My Files

    Head to /library/files . The list starts at root /, showing the five roots. It's one of the four tabs of your library — alongside Approved, Raws, and Logs.

    Open My Files

  2. Drill into a folder

    Click a root to open it, then keep clicking to drill into folders. A /raws listing, for example, is grouped by source — each folder is a video you imported, full of the clips mined out of it.

  3. Search by meaning or name

    Use the search box to find files by meaning (a vector search over each file's notes) or by name. This is why annotating matters — a good note makes a file findable months later when its filename tells you nothing.

  4. Rename, move, copy, or make a folder

    Right-click a file or folder — or open its ⋮ kebab menu — for Rename, Move, Copy, and New subfolder. Use New folder here to create one at the current level. These actions work on free and paid accounts alike.

  5. Preview a file

    Click a file to preview it. Its durable view URL is exactly the URL you can drop into a composition layer or an AI primitive — no re-hosting needed.

Inside a /raws source folder in the explorer: a grid of short video clip thumbnails mined from one source video, each with a duration chip, with breadcrumb navigation showing /raws / product-demo above the grid.
Inside a <code>/raws</code> source folder — the clips mined from one imported video, grouped together.
A file's kebab (three-dot) menu open in the explorer, showing the options Rename, Move, Copy, and New subfolder stacked vertically.
The kebab / right-click menu — Rename, Move, Copy, and New subfolder, on every file and folder.
Heads up Move and Copy are same-root only and metadata-only: the S3 objects are never touched, and a copy simply shares the underlying object — cheap, instant, no re-upload. You can't copy into /approved or /projects — they're read-only / single-publishable-unit roots.

Attach from anywhere (the chat dock drawer)

The exact same explorer is mounted inside the chat dock's left Your files drawer. That's how you hand a file to the AI: attach it to the current turn and the copilot receives the file plus its URL, ready to pass into a generation or drop onto the timeline.

  1. Open the Your files drawer

    In the chat dock, click the paperclip / Attach a file button (or the Files toggle) to slide open the Your files drawer — the same tree, in attach mode.

  2. Navigate and attach

    Move through the roots (/files, /temp, /raws, /projects, /approved) and click a file to attach it. A chip appears in the composer to confirm it's along for the ride.

  3. Send — the AI now sees the file

    Send your message. The copilot receives the file as a content part and its view URL, so it can use it as a reference image, a media layer, or a primitive input.

  4. Reuse the picker in the editor & tools

    The very same picker powers Browse files… in the editor and Attach from your Files on the /tools/* pages — one component, everywhere you need to point at a file.

The chat dock's left 'Your files' drawer open, showing the same directory explorer in attach mode with a folder list, and an attachment chip visible in the message composer below the chat input.
The <strong>Your files</strong> drawer — the same explorer, mounted in the chat dock so you can attach a file to the AI in one click.
Tip Annotate anything you'll want back. Filenames alone don't survive months of accumulation — a file's notes are vector-embedded on save, so a good description is what makes it turn up in a semantic search later. And assume My Files is multi-offer: read the folder tree first and scope your reads to the right brand folder, so you never mix one client's logo into another's video.

Where to go next

Now that you know where footage lives, go fill the library and put it to work:

Open your file tree

Five roots, one explorer, and it shows up wherever you need to point at a file. Browse My Files, tidy a folder, and attach an asset into your next edit.

Open My Files