Issues with exporting movie - insufficient storage space

Question

Hello,
Last night I tried to export a 50 minute movie that I created - I checked my hard disk space and I had 4.3Gb available at the time. I didnt think I would have enough space to export in 720p resolution but tried anyway. Imovie started to create the movie but stopped ~60% through stating that it had insufficient storage space to complete the export. But now, instead of having 4.3Gb available I only have 335 Mb available as I believe Imovie did not delete the unfinished file when it cancelled the export (its storage usage went from 500 mb to 4.3gb after the failed export). The issue is, I now have to way of accessing the unfinished file to delete it and do not have enough storage space to export at a lower resolution! Has anyone else run into this issue?
Is there anyway to access the files embedded in iMovie?
If not if I delete iMovie do my saved projects remain?
Otherwise is there anyway to export my movie onto my computer directly?
I unfortunately did not back up the iPad prior to the export so I cant restore it from a previous point.
Really appreciate your help!

Answer 1

Sadly you are rather stuck at this point.
This appears to be an error in movie that does not clear the space if it is unable to finish creating a movie.
Your 50 minute video would be about 4 gb by my estimates.
imovie would first create this video within the app (apps are sandboxes and must create files within their own memory area).
Once the video is made, iMovie can copy this video to the camera roll.
The way iOS works is to avoid mixing data, thus it is a copy process.
Which means you would have to have 8 gb of space to create your video.
I am going to guess that iMovie correctly made the video, but now has no where to copy it.
And rather annoyingly it holds on to the video for now.
You need another 4 gb space to compete the export.
As you have not enough space left on the iPad you are in a bind and there are only a couple of options left for you.
Firstly, if you delete iMovie iOS you will lose your projects.
I do not advise deleting iMovie.
You cannot export the project, and iMovie iOS projects contain the source video.
So you would need about 4gb of space to export the project.
Also do not delete the source videos, iMovie just links to the camera roll.
So if you delete the video from the photos app then iMovie will lose the video too.
There is no way that is Apple sanctioned to clear the space in iMovie.
Apple has strict rules on what we can discuss in these forums, so I cannot help or advise how to clear iMovie of the half made video.
My best advise would be to delete another app, or files from your iPad.
I hope you have at some point backed up your iPad to your Mac, of iCloud?
If not then do so now.
Then I would suggest you delete large apps to clear space.
These can be restored later.
Look for games or apps that save their user data online.
I have a few Gameloft games, and they store my game data on their servers.
This way you can restore where you were later again.
Or you could connect to iTunes, and delete all the music off the iPad.
THen finish exporting the video, and restore the music later.
Have a look here to see how to use iOS to check what other apps are using space:
http://ipadinsight.com/ipad-tips-tricks/how-to-see-how-much-space-is-being-used- by-each-of-your-apps-in-ios-5/
Good luck, and I hope it works out for you..