Moving from Vimeo
Vimeo Sync copies the videos of a Vimeo account that you own into your site. Each video keeps its title, its description, its thumbnail as the poster, its date and its subtitles. You can sync again at any time to import new videos.
A sync never changes your Vimeo account, and it never deletes a video from your site.
Connect your Vimeo account
Choose File ▸ Sync from Vimeo…. The first time, the window shows how to make a token.
- Click Open the Vimeo Developer Site, and create an app with the name “Kitset”. Any text is fine for the description.
- On the page of the app, generate a personal access token for “Authenticated (you)”, with the scopes Public, Private and Video Files.
- Paste the token into Kitset, and click Save Token.
The token can read your videos, but it cannot change them. Kitset keeps it in the keychain of this Mac, for this site. Site Settings ▸ Vimeo has Forget Token… to remove it.
The plan
Kitset reads your Vimeo account and your site, then lists every video. A large account takes some minutes: Vimeo gives 100 videos for each request. The list includes the videos in cold storage, which Vimeo froze because the account is over the storage limit of its plan.
Kitset keeps a copy of the list on this Mac. Refresh (⌘R) reads the account again, for example for a video that you uploaded to Vimeo after the last read. The bar below the table shows the age of the list.
| Column | Contents |
|---|---|
| Title, Date | From Vimeo. |
| On Vimeo | The privacy of the video on Vimeo. A snowflake marks a video in cold storage. A lock marks a privacy that limits who can watch. |
| Subtitles | The languages of the tracks that a person made, or “Auto-generated”. Kitset reads this in the background, so the column fills in over some minutes. |
| File | The file that Kitset imports. See Video files. |
| Kitset | “Imported” for a video that is in your site, “Not ready” for a video that Vimeo is still processing, or the visibility of the video in your site. |
Show and Select
The Show menu limits the table: Imported, Not Imported or Different Audio Loudness, and With Files or Missing Files. You can choose one item from each group, and they combine.
The Select menu acts on the videos that the table shows: Select All, Select None, Restore Default Selection, and a selection by privacy or by Vimeo folder. The search field also limits the table and the Select menu.
By default, Kitset selects each video whose privacy does not limit who can watch it. Kitset saves your selection on this Mac.
Privacy becomes visibility
| On Vimeo | In your site |
|---|---|
| Anyone | Public |
| Any other setting | Unlisted |
The menu in the Kitset column changes the visibility of each video.
Your site has no passwords. A video with a password or another limit on Vimeo becomes unlisted, so anyone with its link can watch it. The window tells you how many selected videos have a limit.
For a video in cold storage, Kitset uses the privacy that the video had before Vimeo froze it.
Video files
Kitset imports the best file that it can get:
- A file that you choose, or a file from a folder on your Mac.
- Else the original file, when Vimeo has it. Vimeo keeps originals only on some paid plans, and only for uploads after “Keep source video files” was on.
- Else the largest file that Vimeo made from your upload.
On some plans, Vimeo gives no files to apps. Then download the videos from vimeo.com, or with a tool, into one folder or its subfolders, and click Choose Folder….
Kitset matches each file to its video by its name and its duration. The name can be the title, or the title as vimeo.com names a download. A match that is not exact has a yellow warning, and it still counts. When Kitset is not sure, for example when two videos have the same title and duration, the File cell has an orange warning and a Choose menu, and the video does not import until you choose its file. Right-click a File cell to choose any file.
Kitset never changes or deletes the files in your folder.
Import
The button at the bottom right shows what the run does, for example Import 24 Videos. Beside it, Imports into names the site.
For each video, Kitset reads the current details and download links from Vimeo, downloads the file, encodes it and uploads it. The next video downloads while the current one uploads. Stop… stops the videos in progress and deletes their uploaded files. The imported videos stay.
Each imported video has the reference vimeo: and its Vimeo ID. The next sync uses the reference to find the imported videos, so you can sync again at any time. A video whose privacy on Vimeo became stricter since the last read fails, and the message tells you to refresh.
Each video gets the default audio loudness of the site. After the import, your site owns the details of the video. A later sync does not change them.
Subtitles
A sync imports the subtitle tracks that a person made. Vimeo also makes subtitles from the sound of many videos. These often have errors, and many of them have almost no text. Kitset imports them only when you turn on Import Options ▸ Import Auto-Generated Subtitles. You can remove a track later in the edit window of the video.
A track that does not download does not stop the video. The table marks the video.
Re-import videos
The Import Options menu has Imported Videos: Skip, Re-import Video and Audio or Re-import Audio Only. It goes back to Skip each time the window opens.
With a re-import, show Imported or Different Audio Loudness, and select the videos to re-import. Different Audio Loudness lists the imported videos with a level that is not the default of the site. The button then shows, for example, Re-import 12 Videos.
A re-import keeps the link, the details, the poster and the subtitles of each video. Vimeo has no file with only the audio, so Re-import Audio Only also downloads the whole file. See Re-import videos for the rules of each choice.
One run at a time
A site runs one sync or bulk upload at a time, also across several Macs. You can look at the plan during a run on another Mac, and the start button waits.