Moving an iMovie Project to an External HD

I want to move my iMovie project to a new external HD as I am running out of space on my internal drive.
I am currently working with two iMovie projects, one in DV format and one in MPEG4 format.
The MPEG4 format project opens and edits fine once transferred onto the external drive.
However the DV project does not. It opens, but will not play whatsoever. The audio track has the titles of the audio clips displayed on the timeline, which I have not seem before. When I try to play the whole movie or even a segment / clip, nothing happens and the cursor snaps back to the beginning of the movie.
The original version of the project on my internal HD still plays and edits fine.
Does anyone have any ideas what could be causing the problem?
cheers
David

I reformatted my external drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) when I bought it.
Good. Good to do on a new drive.
It's a 250GB WD My Book Premium using USB2 (as firewire taken by another portable).
Have you tried using FireWire instead of USB? That's the preferred method for iMovie. It may be that USB just isn't delivering the data fast enough for DV.
Just guessing here, but it's worth a try.
Karl

Similar Messages

Moving completed iMovie projects to an external harddrive

I have imported some of our home videos to iMovie and edited them to consolidate. I now have a roughly 2 hour project that I would like to move to an external harddrive to free up space. I am also deleting the "events" (the converted home movies that I loaded onto iMovie to create the project). I chose to "export movie" in Share on iMovie and am saving on the external harddrive. I noticed on several other posts here that I could just drag and drop the project, is that true? If I do that, will it only be readable on this Mac that created the project? Ideally, I would like to burn a new dvd with this edited movie. Exporting Movie is taking 4-6 hours so wanted to make sure that was the right thing to do or if there might be a faster way to do this.

If it doesn't recognize the drag, then there is something else awry. You should be able to force a move instead of a copy by holding down the cmd key. Can you just plain copy?
If the destination does not become highlighted, the OS doesn't think it can accept the item for some reason.

Moving iMovie Projects to an external drive

I cannot move iMovie projects to an external drive. I have followed the instructions. Help!

If it doesn't recognize the drag, then there is something else awry. You should be able to force a move instead of a copy by holding down the cmd key. Can you just plain copy?
If the destination does not become highlighted, the OS doesn't think it can accept the item for some reason.

How do I import an imovie project from an external drive to imovie?

My hard drive on Macbook Pro 2009 recently crashed. Luckily I backed up my imovie projects on an external. I upgraded with new hard drive and installed snow leopard. I transferred this particular imovie project from external to the 'movies' folder on the internal drive. When I launch imovie to find this particular imovie project all I see are various folders associated with this particular project not the imovie project icon (the icon where I double click and begin editing). If I try to import directly from external drive the project icons are grayed out.
Furthermore if I try to import any video (whether from external or internal drive) on imovie it says:
This file could not be moved:
(Insufficient access privileges for operation )
All movie files play on quicktime when I test them, so I'm unsure as to why I don't have access privileges.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Any replies to this one? Anyone????

How to move an iMovie project to an external drive ?

Hi I need to move my iMovie project to an external drive, to free some space, please help. if it's possible.....

To make sure that all required media is in the library contain the project you need to "Consolidate media" see: http://help.apple.com/imovie/mac/10.0/#mov882dee351
You can then copy the library to your laptop with the Finder and open it with the same version of iMovie. The last phrase is important since Apple has made changes in the project format several times even between minor updates of iMovie 10. Earlier versions may not be able to read the library and later versions (not possible in this case) may cause the project to be updated so that it is no longer readable by the desktop version. iMovie on the laptop will not at first find the copied library - you will have either to double click on it or File - Open library - Other and navigate to its location.
Geoff.

Moving the iMovie app to an external drive

I currently download a lot of video each day into iMovie and I am constantly running into an issue where I am out of hard-drive disk space. It really limits how much video I can work on at one time. I called and spoke with a member of the Apple Support App Team and he advised that I move the iMovie app to an external hard drive to resolve the issue. I have since done that, but the video clips are still saving to my internal hard-drive instead of the external hard-drive where the app is. When I moved the iMovie app to the external hard-drive, I disconnected the external hard-drive and deleted the app from my internal hard-drive. After emptying the trash, I re-connected the external hard-drive and opened iMovie and began importing movie clips. A little while later, I ran Omni Disk Sweeper and all of the clips that I imported still show on my internal and meanwhile, the external's capacity is only showing the iMovie app itself and no clips. Any ideas on how I can route the clips to the external instead of my Mac's internal hard-drive?

Instead of moving the iMovie application, click here and follow the instructions.
(123002)

If I back up iMovie projects to an external drive does it take the media with it? I want to free up space and remove pictures that were in iPhoto...that were used as media by iMovie when project was under way. In short I want archive iMovie stuff

If I back up iMovie projects to an external drive does imovie take the media with it? I want to free up space and remove pictures that were in iPhoto...that were used as media by iMovie when project was under way. In short I want archive iMovie stuff. If I pull pics out of iPhoto, and later want to drag an archived projet bac into iMovie and the pics are no longer in iPhoto, will I be able to keep working in the project in iMovie?

Very likely not, as the iPhoto's can be used for something else.
More like it took a copy, or it's referencing that spot on the drive in the editable files and most likely made a copy to create a new permanent export file.
Sample one picture and a iMovie file and see what happens.

How do I Retrieve imovie projects from and external drive back into my mac internal drive

How do I Retrieve imovie projects from and external drive back into my mac internal drive?
Thank You

Every working drive, Internal or External, should produce an Icon on your Desktop. If you cannot see those, click on the Desktop (to get Finder) and choose Preferences off the Finder Menu. The general pane has checkboxes for "Show these items on the Desktop:"
Double click the Icon for your External Drive to open it. Open the folders on it until you find the Items you want to copy. Drag them to the Icon of your Internal Drive, or open the folder where you want them to land and drop them in there.
A drive that does not appear on the desktop after you have asked it to may be damaged. But it would be smart to do a Restart to see if it is recognized again at next Startup.

Can I open an imovie project from an external hard drive on a different computer than my own? If so how?

Can I open an imovie project from an external hard drive on a different computer other than my own? If so how?

If you used the Finder to move the files, iMovie will have lost track of them. iMovie holds the locations of the Event files, and Project files contain references to those locations. If you move the files, iMovie has no way of knowing where they are.
If you can, first move all the files back to their original locations. Plug in the external drive. Open iMovie and move the files in iMovie's interface (help explains how, but basically, just drag and drop in the event pane).
Then you can connect the drive to the new computer, and iMovie will see them.

Moving an iMovie project

I have a 1hr movie created using iMovieHD 6.0.3 on a G4 iMac that has no superdrive, and thus, no iDVD.
I would like to author using iDVD on a separate workstation (quad core MacPro, running iDVD 6.0.3).
Moving the iMovie project file is not an option (15GB size). Is there any way to 'export/share to iDVD' on a separate computer?

Can the two computers be connected with a firewire cable? Of course they would need to be in the same place to do this.
I've done what you are trying to do (after transferring the file over an ethernet network). A problem was that there were associated files that were not transferred. These included music on iTunes that was used as background music. These had to then be separately imported into itunes on the second computer. Anyone have a suggestion as to how to prevent this problem?
DanK
iMac G4 800MHz Mac OS X (10.4.2)

I cannot use iMovie Projects / evnets on External Hard Drive

Hi,
I am a long time iMovie, Finale Cut Pro, X... user. I have 26 iMovie projects from my mac at school which I copied to an external HD inside of the imovie software. I've done this in the past to create more space on the mac's hard drive in the past. Recently, I was told the school district was reimaging all of hte computers so I moved all of the projects (and events) to an external HD (again inside of imovie). I wanted to edited the movie's on my desktop mac at home but when I attached the external hard drive and open up imovie on my home computer, I can see the external hard drive inside of imovie, but their are no events or projects????).... Yes, everything is uptodate. I can open the hard drive in a seperate window in the finder (outside of imovie) and see all of the files. I even tried importing and dragging the .rcproject files and double clicking to just open them. Nothing is happening. Can anyone help??? Thanks , Joe
Notes:
1) Both versions of iMovie are the same on both macs.
2) When I open up Final Cut X it also shows the hard drive with the imovie projects / events... but says "no files exist on this disk".... that's crap because I can see them on the hard drive!!!! What the heck is going on!!!!

Top Level of the Drive!!!!!!! . ...Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.... that solved it.
I had ogranized everything into subfolders, so it makes since... just didn't realize they needed to be at the top level. Big help and thanks!!
I am marking "This solved my question" because I accidentally marked "This helped" on the reply above. I don't know how to change it bu Appleman 1958 solved this problem for me. Thanks Appleman 1958
.... for everyone else with the same problem, please see the reply from Appleman1958 from above.
Joe

Moving an iMovie project from one account to another

I started an iMovie project on my wife's login account but I want to move it to my own login account, including all of the clips and edits associated with the project. Can I do that?

When the projects and events are in your wife's account, all those files have permissions assigned that allow her to edit them and no one else. It can be very tricky to alter these permissions and I do not recommend it.
However, there is a much simpler way. You can copy or move the projects and events to an external drive. From there, you can edit them directly, or you can copy or move them to your user account.
The reason this works is that external drives do not have permissions set like user accounts do.
To move or copy to an external drive, follow the instructions here.
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4141

Can I archive my iMovie project to an external drive? how?

I have been searching this forum for an answer but so far have only found how to save my iMovie project to DVD. The problem is, my movie is too big to fit on one DVD. Trash is empty; still no go. I do have a LaCie external firewire drive - can I just do a Save Project As... to the LaCie, or do I have to do something else? I'm just looking to save my movie project so I can get it off of my Mac and free up some hard drive space again.
Many thanks in advance!

Hi Gretchen, regarding the large size of your project, keep in mind that in iMovie HD, an original imported clip is retained in its entirety even if only a small segment is used in your final movie - called non-destructive editing. Only those imported clips not used AT ALL can actually be trashed. This makes for very large projects and potential storage issues, but has the advantage of being able to recover and re-work clips, even after Saving.

How can I move an iMovie Project to an external drive in latest version (10.0.7)

I am trying to transfer an iMovie project from my desktop to my laptop to work on it anywhere. I have seen ways to do this in earlier releases but they do not work for the current version (10.0.7.)
I have a Mac OS Extended (journaled) USB drive. Previous threads have said that the external drive will show up in the "Events Library." This version of iMovie does not have an "Events Library" and the button to make it visible in previous versions is gone. I have looked at the Apple Support link iMovie '11: Copy or move a project to an external hard disk, but this won't work on the latest version release.
I can't seem to find any way to move my project to the external drive.
Any thoughts? Thanks

To make sure that all required media is in the library contain the project you need to "Consolidate media" see: http://help.apple.com/imovie/mac/10.0/#mov882dee351
You can then copy the library to your laptop with the Finder and open it with the same version of iMovie. The last phrase is important since Apple has made changes in the project format several times even between minor updates of iMovie 10. Earlier versions may not be able to read the library and later versions (not possible in this case) may cause the project to be updated so that it is no longer readable by the desktop version. iMovie on the laptop will not at first find the copied library - you will have either to double click on it or File - Open library - Other and navigate to its location.
Geoff.

Moving an iMovie project file for editing on a different iMac

Does anyone know if an iMovie project file started on one iMac can be saved to a usb drive or dvd/cd to be opened on another iMac computer to continue editing? What I have done before is go to: movies>iMovie projects>selected file and save the selected file to a usb drive. I also save the pictures and voice overs/music files that I used with the iMovie project on the same usb drive. However, when I open the iMovie project file on another iMac all of the work that I had previously done is not there. I end up starting all over. I would like to start my project at home and do any finishing touches on the second iMac in order to decrease the time I have to spend at the second location. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

When you move files to your second iMac, they need to be in the EXACT location. If you have your videos and photos in a folder on your desktop named "Movie Stuff," and you just throw them into a folder in documents called "Stuff" on your second iMac, iMovie will not recognize the files. You need to create the same path as the first iMac. In this case, you would have to make a folder called "Movie Stuff" on your second iMac's desktop, and move the files there.
Hope this helped!

Moving an iMovie Project to an External HD

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for