The Jobs panel is Shotcut’s background task manager. It displays the status and progress of intensive processes—such as exporting video, creating proxies, or converting files—allowing you to continue editing or queue multiple tasks without waiting for each one to finish individually.
Opening the Jobs Panel
If the Jobs panel is not currently visible, you can display it using these methods:
- Toolbar: Click the Jobs icon on the top main toolbar.
- Keyboard Shortcut: Press
Ctrl + 0(Windows/Linux) orCmd + 0(macOS). - Menu: Go to View > Jobs.
The Jobs Interface
The Jobs panel typically appears on the right side of the interface. It contains a list of all tasks initiated during the current session.
Job Status Indicators
- Pending (Empty Bar): The job is in the queue and will start automatically when previous jobs finish.
- Running (Percentage/Progress Bar): The job is currently processing. You can see the elapsed time and an estimate of the remaining time.
- Finished (Checkmark): The task completed successfully.
- Failed (Red X): The task encountered an error. You can right-click these to view a log for troubleshooting.
Right-Click Menu Options
Right-clicking any job in the list provides several management and diagnostic tools:
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Stop | Cancels a running job. |
| Remove | Removes the entry from the Jobs list (does not delete the actual file). |
| View Log | Opens a text window showing the technical output of the process. Essential for diagnosing “Failed” exports. |
| View XML | Displays the MLT XML code that was sent to the background “Melt” engine to process the job. |
| Open | Opens the resulting file in the Shotcut Source Player (useful for checking a finished export). |
| Show in Folder | Opens your system’s file explorer and highlights the finished file. |
| Repeat | Restarts a finished or failed job using the original settings. |
Common Job Types
- Export: Triggered when you click “Export File” in the Export panel.
- Proxy: Generated automatically if “Use Proxy” is enabled in Settings.
- Convert to Edit-Friendly: Created when you choose to optimize a variable frame rate or highly compressed clip.
- Reverse: Created when you use the “Reverse” tool in the Properties panel.
Queue Management
- Sequential Processing: By default, Shotcut processes one job at a time to maximize system resources. As one job finishes, the next in the list begins automatically.
- Pausing: You can right-click in the empty space of the Jobs panel to Pause the entire queue. This is helpful if you need to free up CPU power for a complex edit before resuming the export later.
- Priority: You can change the background processing priority in Settings > Job Priority. Setting this to “Low” ensures that your computer remains responsive for other apps while Shotcut exports in the background. This only affects newly enqueued jobs, not existing running or pending jobs.
Troubleshooting Failed Jobs
If a job fails:
- Right-click the job and select View Log.
- Scroll to the bottom to look for error messages (often related to “Codecs,” “Disk space,” or “Memory”).
- Ensure your destination drive has enough free space.
- If using Hardware Encoder, try disabling it and repeating the job to see if the issue is driver-related.