Importing Movie Clips from External Hard Drive

Apologies if this has been answered elsewhere...
I use my Sony SD card camcorder to save in AVCHD. I can import clips through iMovie to an external HD for editing etc. No problems. I want to know if rather than importing through iMovie, I can copy my AVCHD file directly to my external HD (using Finder) & then import the file from my external HD for processing later?
I tend to end up with numerous clips on my card, might be covering differnt events, differnt days etc. I don't always have time to import into iMovie on the day I shoot. For , the ability to just dump files to my HD quickly to free up SD card space would be really useful, but I am not sure it is possible
Any feedback welcome
D

Yes.
The best way is to use the iMovie import screen. At the bottom left you will see a button that says "Create Camera Archive". Press that button and you will copy the AVCHD to the location you specify.
Try IMPORT/FROM CAMERA ARCHIVE and verify that your clips show up. Then it is safe to erase your card.
Another way. Go into Disk Utility, Select your card. Choose Create Disk Image.
Another way. Go into Finder. Create a folder. Drag the entire contents of your card, including folders, and especially empty folders to this new folder. If you do it right, that is the same as an Archive.

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