> seems to be working to only save the takes that are referenced by the file

Yes, File > Save Project As will create a new project with no undo history, so it can leave any now-unused takes behind. Any artwork already gathered (i.e. in the Ch Media folder in the project) will be copied into the new project's Ch Media folder. Any artwork outside of the project will still be referenced wherever it lives.

The Ch team agrees that an Archive Project (which would be like Save Project As but also gather up referenced artwork) would be very useful, as would a way to remove things unused by selected scenes in the project, like AE.

Yeah, I don't change a puppet once it's used in a scene for that reason.

However, I want to keep the psd files in a folder that syncs to the cloud and the Ch project in a location that doesn't sync.

The Ch project folders change a lot and have thousands of files, so no good for syncing to cloud. I've also found there's a bug which can corrupt a project folder when sync conflicts occur. Adobe knows about the bug, but they just recommend not automatically syncing the folders to cloud.

I see what use case you're trying to cover here, though, and I agree it'd be very useful.I hope Adobe does something about it -- seems like all the code it written, it's just not combined in the right way yet!

Save-As copies the project exactly as it is, including leaving the linked files where the original artwork is.

If you first gather, then obviously everything is gathered.

The benefit of the save-as is that it leaves the un-referenced files out of the newly saved project. This can be a lot of files.

For what it's worth, I used to think as you do - and I still do while developing a puppet.

However, I realized the danger in this. Once you create a puppet, rigging and creating triggers and swap sets. And then use them in a scene. What happens if you modify the artwork and the rig breaks. BAD BAD BAD NEWS! - you cannot use any of your takes. Even if you recreate the exact original rigging, it's now NEW rigging and you have to redo your scene.

So when you archive a scene, I highly recommend collecting the media, and archiving it with the scene so the art is as it was when the scene was completed.

You can always manually re-link to the original artwork. But if you don't do as I'm suggesting you could lose a lot of work.

True, you really need both "Remove Unused" and "Collect Project Files".

I have indeed unzipped a .puppet file and you're right. You can even watch it making the folder structure before it zips it up if you watch the file system :) Fun stuff.

So you're saying Save-as will move all the linked project files? Does it create a "Gathered Media" folder?

I would like my Puppets to remain linked to the original .psd files, so I get nervous when I see them copied into "Gathered Media" folder.

So far it seems it keeps the link, but I'm watch it closely!

That also would be a good idea. However the "extra" files are in the file system, not in the project... well they are also in the project.

I just want to be able to export a scene and have it include everything in the same way a puppet export does for a puppet.

fwiw a .puppet file is basically just a project that includes the puppet and all it's behaviors and playbacks etc in a zip file renamed puppet. yes you can rename the puppet to .zip and unzip it and open it in Ch! :D

Rather than export or save-as, perhaps a "remove unused" feature would be appropriate? After Effects has this and it is very useful.

OK Maybe I missed this, and perhaps this is how "save as" actually works?

I have started doing "Save As" and incrementing my version numbers - seems to be working well, and then I have fall-back versions in the event of the horrific corrupted project syndrome!

Anyway, as I said, seems to be working to only save the takes that are referenced by the file. I can't be certain, but fairly confident.