Can an iMovie project be restored once it's missing?

I've seen a bunch of discussions along these lines, but sadly no solid answers.
I have an iMovie project that I've put probably 35 hours into. A very complicated piece with clips, music, pictures, lots of stuff. I had experienced a few recent iMovie crashes, but the project was always still there upon restarting.
But then last night when I quit the application - simply by command-Q'ing - when I started it up again the project was no longer in my project library. I can see the file in my iMovie Projects folder, but double clicking on it does not open it. The file size also seems too small compared to other iMovie project files, but its modification date seems accurate.
I've deleted my iMovie preferences file as referenced in other similar questions. This didn't help. I have not updated to the new OS or updated iMovie yet; I was actually waiting until my big project was finished just in case iMovie would lose any audio files, etc., in the transition.
I've restarted, shut down, copied and renamed the file, tried to open the file on a different iMac - all with failed results. I was not running Time Machine. I'm starting to accept the inevitable, but it's pretty frustrating when you can see the file there, exactly where it's supposed to be, but it refuses to work.
If anyone can suggest how to restore or otherwise find/fix this file, I'd love to hear it.
Thanks.

Use Share to QuickTime. Set the format to Sound to AIFF. Take it to iTunes. If you have iTunes set to import using MP3 you can use the Advanced menu to convert the AIFF to MP3.

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Simple Question: How long can my iMovie project be?

I've got a movie project in iMovie '11 (9.0.2) that is a bit over 2.5 hours and I get an error when trying to export it ("Unable to prepare project for publishing..... Project is too long.) Unfortunately the error doesn't come up until AFTER it's gone through the motions...5 to 6 hours later! This seems crazy to me since I would think people burning to DL DVD would have projects as long or longer. I'm not going to iDVD with it so I don't need it to be under 2 hours for a SL DVD.
I have 70+GB of space available on my HD and let it run overnight several times. Haven't tried exporting to Quicktime out of it since it says it's going to take 22 hours to process!
I can split it in half if necessary, but does anyone know an official project length limit or other workaround? THANKS!

Yes, your movie is too long. Divide it up into 5 30 minute movies. You can do this by selecting your movie in the Project Library View, and clicking FILE/DUPLICATE PROJECT 5 times. Then for project 1, delete everything but the first 30 minutes. For project 2, delete everything but the 2nd 30 minutes, etc. If 30 minutes is still too long, you can shorten it again with this method.
If you need to make a theatrical length movie (e.g. 2 1/2 hours), I suggest Final Cut Pro X. It will make movies this long.
Final Cut Pro X can import iMovie Projects, so if you want, you can create your movie in Final Cut Pro X.
The reason iMovie is not the right tool for you is that it was designed for amateur home movies. Technically, iMovie will render the entire movie in a single pass. This means that the longer your movie, the more powerful computer, memory, and disks you will need, but ultimately there is a limit to what can be accomplished in a single pass. However, Final Cut Pro X can do multiple renders. It will render as you go, so that at the end, when you make your 2.5 hour movie, it can just string together sequences which have already been rendered.

Do i need to keep my iMovie project and event once i upload the final movie to you tube?

hello there and i hope this is an easy answer for everyone.
i enjoy making and uploading short content to you tube but iconstantly' battle with memory.
if i could upload my finished movie and remove the event footage, i could even maybe burn a dvd copy of the finished piece, my ability to make future pieces would be restored once i finish the movie.
i have never wanted to edit something once it is finished so i would think i could get rid of the footage.
sometimes i believe data is lost if you remove pieces or where they were stored.
i don't want to loose any of the content that i have generated to you tube tho.
any help or suggestions would be great...have a wonderful iday'
looking forward to some good news for my memory.
smile face

i am sure that your are correct that my issue is hard drive space.
i suppose my question remains tho.
let me try to express my concern.
can i copy all of the imovie events and projects from my "home" movie folders to an external drive and still have the finished content on you tube?
i would like to keep the content on you tube while regaining my computer's speed.
sorry that i am not more cyberhip'.
thanks for the help so far...

Can my imovie project be edited by someone else if I want them to?

I don't see any way to share an editable project with someone else.
Is this a deliberate structure Apple set up?
I'd like to be able to pass my file over to someone else to
work on technical stuff while I concentrate on content.
How can I do that?
This application doesn't seem to have any means of
exporting a collect of all the elements off my root directory.
thanks,
-Doug

dougster127 wrote:
.. Is this a deliberate structure Apple set up?
yepp, it is..
'til vers 6 of iMovie, all content/elements as clips, music, narration, titles, were stored in some single 'solid' package file, you could easiely transfer onto other Macs..
since vers7 (aka iM08), Project and Events/'Clips' are located on diff. directories.. when copying those files, usually, the 'connection' between Project discription and related clips gets lost.
iM as any other iLife app isn't meant for 'multi user' usage..

Long distance iMovie project collaboration?

Hey guys/ladies,
I am working on a website with a friend who lives in Virginia, while I live in Atlanta.
We want to collaborate on iMovie projects for the website (mainly 1 min or so video clips, with pictures, titles, text, transitions, etc added). Ideally, we would use something like Dropbox. However, this just doesn't seem to work.
I have searched for guidance in this area fairly extensively, however I just can't seem to come up with a solution. I am new to this whole Mac and iMovie thing (in fact, I bought a Mac just so I could collaborate with him using iMovie). It seems that you can't just drag the project folders to Dropbox, transfer to the other Mac, and everything works.
Does anyone have any ideas? I know that you can transfer iMovie projects via external hard drive, however shipping an external hard drive back and forth between VA and Atlanta just would get expensive.
Thanks!

Thank you for your suggestions.
I don't quite understand what you mean by "editing file". Could you explain? Also, are you sure this works because you've tried it or is this just something you think might work? I ask because I've previously gone through the Apple instructions for how to transfer an iMovie project from one computer to another and I got the sense one had to do it that way rather than manipulating files in the file system.
I did look into WeVideo but it is quite limited compared to iMovie. For example, you cannot change the video speed at all, whereas iMovie allows full control of that. iMovie can grab this market if they sort this out.
Thanks again, and I look forward to your reply.

Imported iMovie project missing elements in FCX

Okay so we can import iMovie projects, why are most of my transitions, all audio and theme pieces missing in the FCX project?

Strange. I thought FCP X was fully compatible with its younger sibling, iMovie. Maybe it can't read any file format properly. But I'm sure there's an update on the way in a year. Or two.

IMovie projects on Apple tv

Can an iMovie project be looped when it has synched with Apple tv? (like you would would just photos?)

Can an iMovie project be looped when it has synched with Apple tv? (like you would would just photos?
No. The ability to "loop" a selection is a property of the "player" application. If the player doesn't understand a "loop" instruction, then it would be ignored.

Exporting iMovie Project using Compressor.

I've just finished a 4-hour concert video in iMovie HD 6. I wonder if I could use compressor to encode file without exporting full quality movie at first. I have not enough HDD space left. I also tried to import iMovie project file to FCP but the timeline didn't work very well.
Thx

Sorry for the delay..
In FCP, use File and Open, then navigate to an iMovie project and select it - which should work even though "Standard Files" is shown as the format at the bottom of the "Choose a File" window. Then FCP will say "Reading Project", and then will ask where to store this new FCP project, and it would normally go in your "Final Cut Pro Documents" folder.
You may then get a "Media Performance Warning", which may say that the media files are not optimised for Final Cut Pro. But just click on OK, and they should load and play perfectly ..at least, mine do.
You say that you get the following error:
"File Error: 1 file(s) recognized, 0 access denied, 1 unknown."
That might be some kind of permissions error ..but you don't say what happens next: if it's "0 access denied", that suggests that FCP does have access to the file and should open it ..but maybe it stumbles over that "1 unknown".
So tell us; what happens after you get that error message? ..Does the file open or not ..and what happens instead of it opening? And why d'you get only "..1 file(s) recognized.." if you're opening an entire project which would normally consist of several files?
You say "..when I try to import my imovie file.." ..but why are you IMPORTING rather than simply OPENING the iMovie project in FCP? FCP can read iMovie projects, so it should simply be a matter of opening the project, not exporting it from iMovie and then importing it into FCP.
Look: here's a project in iMovie..
..and here's the same project opened (with File and Open) in FCP:
All the source files are there (..in that little list at top-left..) so that the whole project plays in FCP just as it does in iMovie HD 6.
[..For a bigger, easier to see, view of these pics, click on 'Start Slideshow' on this page..]
As for "..How can I get a copy of QT6 and keep it seperate?.." erm, if you were still on OS X 10.3.9 you could 'downgrade' from QT 7 to QT 6, but I don't know how to obtain - apart from your asking someone who has it - a copy of QT 6 now that only QT 7 is downloadable ..or search amongst your original installation discs.
Maybe somebody else here knows where to find and download QT 6; but I can't think where ..sorry! (..I don't know if this old version will work for you or not, or if it would interfere with QT 7..)
NOTE: That REMOVING QT 7 may interfere with running FCP!
NOTE: That if you have QT Pro 7, then going back to QT 6 may mean that your 'Pro' key will no longer work with QT 6, and you may be left with just the QT 6 player.
..That's why I advised keeping separate versions of 7 and 6, so that FCP isn't affected by the 6 downgrade. To keep them separate, you'd leave QT 7 in your Applications folder, and put QT 6 in, say, your 'Movies' folder. I do NOT know, though, if they use the same - or different - 'preference' files (..normally stored in "com. apple.quicktime.(etcetera)" in <your User name>Library/Preferences and in other Libraries).
I suggest NOT rummaging around and changing/moving/exchanging those preference files unless you KNOW what you are doing, or are advised by a specialist like Karl.

How can I restore an iMovie project after a force quit?

I have been working on an iMovie project for a few months now and today as I was uploading a new video to it, iMovie locked up. I had no choice but to force quit the application. I had not previously saved my project because it had always opened back up even after closing iMovie and even shutting down my Mac. Once I force quit iMovie and reopened it, my project was gone. It is still under the iMovie project folder but when I click "open with iMovie" it won't open. Is there any way to restore my project even if it takes it back to a previous time I had worked on it? I also have not used time machine so it was not running during this time. I would be devastated to have to restart my project.

I forgot to put in the previous post that it is iMovie '11. Any help is appreciated.

Once I finish an iMovie project and I publish it to various destinations (Dropbox iTunes YouTube etc) do I need to keep the original raw video on my MacBook or can I archive it to an external hard drive.

I have now finished 3 iMovie projects and have learned how to prepare them for sharing through various media like Dropbox, iDVD YouTube iTunes etc. but I now have produced a huge number of related files which are filling up my hard drive to the point that I can't import any further raw video until I archive or delete many of these files.
What files do I need to keep on my MacBook in order to be able to keep these various shared locations functioning, and what should I delete or archive?

iMovie works best with uncompressed audio. If your track is MP3 or AAC, you may get better results by converting your track to the AIFF format and then using that in iMovie.
You can do this in iTunes. Go to iTunes/Preferences and click the General button. On the General page, click the Import Settings button. Choose IMPORT USING: AIFF ENCODER.
(note: remember what you changed it from so you can change it back later, before you import another CD)
Now, in iTunes, select your track. Then click FILE/CREATE NEW VERSION/AIFF VERSION.

I have produced several short iMovie projects and want to link them into a continuous stream on a DVD. Can it be done? All of the projects are in my Moblie Me Gallery

I have produced several short (2 to 3 minute) iMovie projects and want to link them in a continuous stream on a DVD. The clips are in my Mobile Me gallery. How can it be done?

You can do that too, it's all in the iDVD program.
But first you want to assemble the separate clips into one big long clip. For that you would use iMovie. Share to the Media Browser (choose the Large size). Let it export then quit iMovie.
Open iDVD, click on the Media button and then the Movies button. Under the iMovie star icon you will see your final assembled clips movie. In the iDVD project window turn on the map view (it's little boxes that look like a flowchart) then drag the iMovie project into the first box:
You can set the project to startup without a Menu, and then loop continuously as well. Go up to the Advanced Menu then click on the Loop movie option to turn it on.
Once checked the Loop movie status will appear as curved arrow icon in the Project Window:
In the lower right corner is the icon indicating this video clip will loop while being played.

How can I export an iMove Project if the Event file was deleted? (Missing Media error message)

Deep iMovie question:
I accidentally deleted various EVENT files from my iMove EVENTS folder. Yes, they are really gone ... this is NOT a matter of restoring them from the trash.
The projects are still there ... I can still watch the projects as long as I am in iMovie ... but if I try to export the Project I get the MISSING MEDIA error message.
Logic tells me that if I can view the project ... the file has to be SOMEWHERE inside my computer ... else I couldn't be watching it ... right? I mean what am I watching if not some file somewhere which has moving pictures stored in it?
So HOW do I get to something I can export? What am I watching when I watch the project?
I have iMove 08 on iMac with OS 10.6.8
Normally works great for my simple needs ... except if you move or delete an event file ...
Can anyone out there help?
thank you,
Natasya

If you don't have the original files then I'm afriad you don't have anything to work with.
Regards
TD

I was working on a project in iMovie (10.0.1) and iMovie just crashed. when i reopened it the project i was working on disappeared. in my list of projects it still says i have 3 projects but its only showing me 2. is there any way i can recover my project

i was working on a project in iMovie (10.0.1) and iMovie just crashed. when i reopened it the project i was working on disappeared. in my list of projects it still says i have 3 projects but its only showing me 2. is there any way i can recover my project?? PLEASE HELP!!!

iMovie on your Mac has nothing to do with iCloud storage. Download and use Find Any File to search for your iMovie project. FAF can search areas that Spotlight can't, like invisible folders, packages and system folders. If there a file with your file name on it anywhere on the hard drive FAF will find it.
Do you have Time Machine enabled backing up to an external HD? This situation is exactly what TM is good at. It makes hourly backups so you can go back to find and restore the missing file. All HDs crash at some time or another and having a good backup strategy is the only protection against that.

Can i turn an imovie project into an Mpeg file to work on a Windows System?

Hi is there a way of turning an iMovie production into a standard MPeg format to play on windows operating system???

Once i have created and imovie project i am needing to turn it into an bog standard MPeg that will play within a powerpoint presentation supported by windows media player .mov .avi etc don't work not very techy... The only way i have managed to do this so far is to create a dvd then turn it into MPeg using pinnacle on a windows system but i lose a vast amount of quality
I was saying that if you have the right software you can create MPG, MPEG (MPEG2/MPEG-1, layered audio), M2V/AIFF paired elementary stream clips, VOB (MPEG2/AC3 or MPEG2/PCM), TS MPEG-2 stream files, etc., and you would need decide on which typr of file you wanted. If you want VOB with MPEG2/PCM content, then let iDVD image a file and all you have to do is copy the VOB(s) from the image,

Can't open my Imovie project

I can see the icon in my Imovie Projects folder in my finder browser and have managed to copy and paste this file onto my desktop. When I click on the file for this 12:00 fully edited Imovie project it opens up Imovie '11....but the project does not show up. My project was deleted when Imovie unexpectadly quit about an hour ago and I had been working on it for the past several nights putting in many hours of editing. I am now sleep deprived, extremely confused, and I would love ANY INSIGHT. I still have all of the video footage in my Imovie library.....but to re-cut/copy and edit the video that I am trying to recover would take quite a while once again.....and time is precious.

This file will not open unless it is in the Movies/iMovie Projects folder. iMovie will not open it from the desktop.
I am confused. If your project is deleted, how did you copy and paste it?
My suggestion would be to close iMovie and trash your Preferences file. It is possible that only your preferences file was corrupted and the project is OK. (But no promises.)
To trash the preferences file, see this user tip. Let me know if you have questions. You may want to go to iMovie/Preferences and note your current settings. You will need to re-enter these after you trash your preferences.
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4061

Can an iMovie project be restored once it's missing?

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