Moving iMovie projects to External

After following all of the threads and instructions on moving or copying an imovie project I am still unable to do so. When dragging a project (command key or not) from the project library to any of my 5 external HDs (All of which are properly fomatted) the option to copy is not available. That is the cursor does not change when hovered over drive icon and when released just bounces back to project library. Any idea on why this might not be available. I am a long time mac user and can follow the various versions of the instructions provided in the help file as well as the variations found here in the support forum. Any ideas on what might be causing this problem? I really need to move a project and its incredibly frustrating that such a simple process does not work
OS 10.8.5
Mac Mini 2.5Ghz i5
iMovie 9.0.9
Thanks in advance

Let's assume you have raw MP4 clips in an event.
You start a project and select portions of the clips to be in the project. You add titles, music, etc.
Then you Share/Using QuickTime in MP4 format. At this point, the movie is rendered by using the Project file as a roadmap to go our and get the right clips from the Event files, add the titles, add the music etc. and produce a single MP4 movie that you can play.
You may get better results if you use a variant of MP4 called h.264.
You can also adjust the color of the movie using the video adjustments. Also, if your raw material is MP4, you should realize that this is a highly compressed format. You may get better results if you use a free app like MPEG Streamclip to convert the MP4 file into Apple Intermediate Codec, then import this into iMovie. Then you create your movie as always. Then you can share it as an MP$ (h.264).
The MP4 codec has one full frame for every 24 or so frames. The rest of the frames contain information about what has changed from the prior frame, so iMovie must resolve and compute what all the frames are as it is adding the titles, adding music etc at render time - then reconverting to mp4.
If you convert it to Apple Intermediate Codec, every frame is converted to a full frame.
If your source material is low resolution, editing in MP4 is fine. But is your source material is high definition, you will definitely get better results by converting to full frames before editing.
That probably isn't very clear, but come back with additional questions if you like.

Similar Messages

Moving imovie projects to external hard drive

To save space on my hard drive, I moved all my imovie projects to an external hard drive and then deleted them on my laptop. When I tried to import them again, imovie did not recognize them - they were grayed out and not importable. What did I do wrong? Is it possible that I needed to move all the event clips together with the projects?
I need to figure out how to remove movie material to keep memory open, but am not clear how to do it. . . What do the experts do about this?

Let's assume you have raw MP4 clips in an event.
You start a project and select portions of the clips to be in the project. You add titles, music, etc.
Then you Share/Using QuickTime in MP4 format. At this point, the movie is rendered by using the Project file as a roadmap to go our and get the right clips from the Event files, add the titles, add the music etc. and produce a single MP4 movie that you can play.
You may get better results if you use a variant of MP4 called h.264.
You can also adjust the color of the movie using the video adjustments. Also, if your raw material is MP4, you should realize that this is a highly compressed format. You may get better results if you use a free app like MPEG Streamclip to convert the MP4 file into Apple Intermediate Codec, then import this into iMovie. Then you create your movie as always. Then you can share it as an MP$ (h.264).
The MP4 codec has one full frame for every 24 or so frames. The rest of the frames contain information about what has changed from the prior frame, so iMovie must resolve and compute what all the frames are as it is adding the titles, adding music etc at render time - then reconverting to mp4.
If you convert it to Apple Intermediate Codec, every frame is converted to a full frame.
If your source material is low resolution, editing in MP4 is fine. But is your source material is high definition, you will definitely get better results by converting to full frames before editing.
That probably isn't very clear, but come back with additional questions if you like.

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.

IMovie Project from External Hard Drive not Opening?

Please help!!
Fairly new to MACs, iMovie and iDVD, I didn't have a clear understanding of how saving iMovie projects worked. Reading various tutorials, I thought I had a clear understanding of how they work. Apparently not with my recent frustration with iMovie.
I created several iMovie Projects but needed more space in order to make more projects for my internship thus I did what I thought was common sense -- get an external hard drive.
I exported iMovie projects into my user account and from there, dragged the saved projects into an external hard drive and then deleted the iMovie projects from my user account.
However, when I needed to retrieve these projects, I simply turned on my hard drive and clicked on them to open. However, whenever I tried opening them, they wouldn't open. Is it because I didn't export them to the hard drive in the first place?
What I don't understand is why iMovie is not opening or recognizing the saved iMovie projects from the external hard drive when the size and kind clearly indicate that it should open with iMovie automatically.
What is the proper way of saving my iMovie projects and events so that I can always have access to whenever I need to open up an old project or simply edit?

Freeing up space on your Mac hard drive in iMovies ’08.
The application iMovie ‘08 has two main libraries displayed in the iMovie window: Events and Projects. Events are the main imports from your video camera, say. These files are big and you have the option to save them on an external hard drive and so iMovie knows to find them there. Projects are your editing instructions like what clips you want and where. The files are small and you save them on your Mac hard drive. They are NOT the clips only signposts where to find them (in Events on your external hard drive). You can move Projects to your external hard drive as back-up but iMovie will not find them there. If you then delete Projects from your Mac, iMovie can no longer make use of them unless you manually export them back into iMovie from your external hard drive. See Apple Article HT1026 iMovie '08: Moving iMovie footage to another drive (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1026). Here the external hard disk is used for moving Projects from one computer to another and, by implication, back to the source computer.
Sharing the projects to iTunes for syncing with Apple TV creates (publishes) movies that take up the same amount of space on your Mac as the source Projects. You can still burn DVDs in iDVD using the iTunes Movies as your Media so provided you have iMovie Projects backed up on your external hard drive you can delete them from your Mac and just use the iTunes Movies (for Apple TV and iDVD). In addition, publishing iMovie Projects in iTunes for syncing to Apple TV results in these files being duplicated in both Movies/iMovies Sharing/iTunes AND in iTunes/iTunes Music/Movies so delete them from here and get even more GBs back! Tell iTunes in Advanced not to save these iTunes published movies anymore in order to stop further duplication ocurring.

MOving IMovie to a external hard drive to free up space

I am trying to figure out how to move Imovie and Iphoto to my external hard drive and not have all the storage on my computer to help free up space. I was told by some one that it could be done but am trying to figure out how.

For iMovie 08 you need to leave the iMovie application and the iMovie Project folder where it is. But these are rather small. The big files are in the iMovie Events, and these can be moved.
You will need an external drive that is formatted as MacOS Extended (journaled). The drive can be USB or Firewire.
In iMovie, click VIEW/EVENTS BY VOLUME.
You should see your external drive in the event list. You can drag and drop the Events in the Event list onto the small icon for this drive, and they will be moved.
If you do this move using the Finder, it will break the links to all your projects. So be sure to do it in iMovie.
All this is in iMovie Help, so if you need some details and pictures, check the Help.

Moving iMovie projects to another disk

On my desktop, a warning box appeared telling me that the start-up disc is almost full.
Disk Utility confirms that on the 560 GB capacity disk, there is only 1 GB space available.
In iMovie on that same disk, there are several dozen movie projects.
I would like to move most of these projects to another disk in the MacPro (there are three other disks), but still want to work on the iMovie projects on the start-up disk.
Is there a way of storing the files on another disk, and still working on the projects on the start-up disk?
Thank you in advance, Isshi.

You can store Projects and/or Events on an external or secondary disk. The disk must be formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
For moving projects see this.
http://help.apple.com/imovie/#move7d66613
For moving project assets (events, photos, music) see this.
http://help.apple.com/imovie/#mov3ac6c7c9
For moving Events, see this.
http://help.apple.com/imovie/#mov3ac6d42c

Transfer iMovie project to external hard drive

I have a huge video project in my iMovie08 that is too large to even put in the browser. I've tried to transfer it all to an external disk, so I can work on it in pieces from there, but it doesn't seem to transfer or even copy it to the hard drive. The project shows up on the hard drive, but it just opens the one that's on my computer. There's plenty of space on the external drive. How do I go about transferring it properly - I really don't want to lose it as it was very time-consuming to get it on my machine in the first place. Thanks in advance for any help.

Hi
Moving Event's and Project's
Connection - Either connect one Mac in Target mode to the other via FireWire. Or use an external hard disk !
(Target-Mode - Start one Mac e.g. laptop - BUT keep T-key down during full up-start - Now a FW-symbol is jumping around the screen and it will work as an external hard disk when connected to the other Mac)
A. The External Hard Disk - MUST BE - Mac OS Extended (hfs) formatted to work for Video. UNIX/DOS/FAT32/Mac OS Exchange works for most other things but not for Video whatever program is used (iMovie or FinalCut)
B. Should be a FireWire one as USB/USB2 performs badly to me and especially when filling up
C. Do never Move or Alter any folder named
• iMovie Event's - or -
• iMovie Project's
on DeskTop/Finder - as this will result in iMovie losing connections to them and repair can be anything from hard to impossibly
D. Moving and Copying must be done within iMovie application and Events to Events - and - Project's to Project's.
E. Moving Project's to Event's - Do not work for me - I have to export project as a QuickTime movie then Import this intoEvents.
Event's window can show two faces
Like this
or like this
from one hard disk Event - You can move it to the other hard disk
You can not (at least not me) move Event to Project or other way around only
Event to Event and Project to Project
Yours Bengt W

Transfer iMovie project from external drive??

I posted this on the iMovie forum with no luck. I thought I would try here in case it was a Snow Leopard issue.
My Apple died, so I transferred everything from the external backup to my new apple. It was all backed up with Time Machine. Everything went perfect except for my iMovie Project. It copied well, but I cant open it. The message says:
If the project is already on your hard disk, then the disk may be completely full, or you may not have permission to modify that folder. Correct the problem and try again.
the computer hard drive shows 28 GB are open for use (this is after the iMovie project was transferred over). I had this problem before on this new computer because I was using it for my business and had an administrative account separate from the guest account so others did not have access to some files. Anyway, I found out that I could open the iMovie project on the guest account but not with the administrative account. I still can not open it with the administrative account. I thought the administrative account was the only account I had now. There is a guest account which is disabled. I enabled and tried that, but when I logged in, the desktop did not even include the hard drive??
Anyway, I do not want to have to go to the guest account to work on my project, I only want access to everything on the one account.
When I check the permissions for the file. It shows that there are two "Everyone" listings with the icon of 3 people. One of them has "Custom" as a privilege and the other one has "Read & Write" as a privilege. I don't know what any of this means.
I know I said a lot. I was hoping to give as much info as possible.
Please help.
Thank You

I fixed it. I kept playing around with privileges until I found the right option. I have it now, thank you.
I did this earlier but no luck. I am good now.

Moving imovie project to a windows pc to burn to dvd

Hi iv been looking all over the place my question is how do i move an imovie project to a windows pc so i can use nero or something on the pc to burn the project to a dvd that can be watched with a dvd player the reason is i have no super drive
please help!!!!!!!!
iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8)
iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

...because in imovie format you cant select it..
my guess was, because your harddrive is "crowded" usually, any project saved into the movies-folder on your internal drive, should be available via iDVD... (??)
.. Plan B): create a new iDVDproject, and drag'n drop your iMproject (icon has a black star on it) into the iDVD window...
then, choose in iDVD "create image"; that creates a "digital, virtual" copy of your final disk => "mydvd.img",... following the advices I posted above, you can use any window app to burn from that a videoDVD, compatible with all standalone DVDplayers/PC/Mac dvd-player-apps PLUS all shinin' blinkblink of an iDVD-production.

Opening imovie project from external hard drive

I get this message: The project “last duly noted” was saved with an older version of iMovie. Opening it in this version will cause it to be upgraded, which will make it unreadable by older versions. Are you sure you want to open it?
How can I edit this item?

Hi Harmless - I do not think that your problem has anything to do with the external drive. Your project must have been crreated on an earlier version of iMovie - iMovie 4 perhaps, and contained in a standard folder. It can be upgraded to an HD project - best to use a copy for this, just in case....!
When you upgrade, it will firstly be converted only partially into the new version, so you have to take another step to fully convert>
Here's a comment about what should happen:
"A project created by iMovie 5 is a special kind of folder called a package. It looks and acts like a file. The package contains all the files and folders you see, but they are all hidden inside the package. To open the project in iMovie you double-click on the package.
If your project looks like an iMovie 4 folder instead of a package — so you can easily see inside — my guess is it's probably a project you've converted from iMovie 4 to iMovie 5. Converted projects do not look or act like true iMovie 5 projects. They contain the same files/folders but are stored in a conventional folder, just like iMovie 4.
That's not necessarily a good thing, for a user can get inside too easily, and open the project by double-clicking on that tilde file. If you do that, iMovie opens the PREVIOUSLY-saved version of the project. And when you next save, iMovie creates a second tilde file. Then a third, then a fourth. It's all too easy for the user to get confused, open the wrong project file and create quite a mess.
So it's a good idea, after converting a project from iMovie 4 to iMovie 5, to do a Save As to save the project into a new project. Then iMovie 5 builds a true iMovie 5 project that looks and acts like a real iMovie 5 project. Lots safer, and it works better." (as described by Karl Petersen)
So, you should experience no problems if you follow that advice - go ahead and convert!

IMovie projects on external hard drive not visible

Thanks for the help. I recently received a free upgrade to iMovie 10 (I think that's what it's called) and now I can no longer view any of my existing projects or events that I had saved on an external hard drive that's connected via Thunderbolt. Is there anything that you can advise me to do before I condemn the new iMovie any more than I already have!??? Thanks again!
Chris

I wish I could help. I found the same thing when I "upgraded" to the new version. When I launched iMovie 10, I allowed it to update my movie library and in the process it seems to have copied everything to my Mac's hard drive. I had all my events stored on an external drive and I don't want those files on my internal drive.
Here's the best part: In case you have't figured it out yet, iMovie 10 will reset ALL of your iMovie '11 preferences, so when you decide to go back to using the old version (as I have) you'll have to go through every page of prefs and "fix" them.
I may eventually try using the new version, but only after they've replaced most or all of the functionality of iMovie '11. This is almost exactly how things played out when Apple replaced iMovie HD back in 2009. It's like they have no beta testers at all.

Moving iMovie projects between iPhone and iPad?

I will be travelling overseas soon and want to film video using my iPhone (4s) and then edit using my iPad using iMovie. Is there a simple way to move video projects directly between devices as I will not have access to my PC and my iTunes account on the PC? I have searched forums but I'm getting mixed messages. Can iCloud be used? thx - BV

Please elaborate - share what?
Just guessing here...
Any sharing is probably a result of being logged in with the same Apple ID on both devices.
For apps/music: Settings > iTunes & App Stores > Automatic Downloads OFF.
For iCloud: Settings > iCloud > Delete Account.
For iMessage: Settings > Messages > Send & Receive.

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????

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.

Archiving iMovie Projects to DVD

I'm trying to archive my iMovie projects onto DL DVD+R's. Each project is about 12.5 GB, so they won't fit onto a single DL DVD+R. I've tried using Retrospect, but it fails after spending an hour "configuring" my DVD drive. The only thing I can think of is that it doesn't like non-rewritable media.
This is what I'm really trying to do. I have several tapes I've taken with two camcorders over the last ten years. One is a Sony 8mm analog camcorder and the other is a newer JVC GR-DVL520U MiniDV with FireWire connecter. I want to backup all the movies so that none of my footage is lost in case one of the camcorders fails. The 8mm one is already a bit flakey so I want to be able to get it off of 8mm while I still can.
I was planning on creating a viewable copy of each tape, record it onto DVD and then put that DVD in my safe deposit box. I would like to retain as much of the original quality/information as I can (I'm anal that way), so I figured that saving the iMovie project itself, in addition to a regular DVD burn, would be the best bet. Most posts mention storing projects on an external harddrive, but since I'm trying to keep my original footage safe, DVD seems like the best way.
I guess I really have two questions. The first is, do I gain anything by keeping the original iMovie project? My understanding is that iMovie will compress the imported video, resulting in some detail loss from what was on tape. (With the advent of HD TV this may be a bigger deal than it is now).
My second question is, how do I backup 12.5 GB iMovie projects? As I mentioned earlier, it doesn't seem to like my drive, or at least the non-rewritable media I'm using (Memorex DL DVD+R). I also tried using a CD-R, but it gave the same error while trying to "configure" the DVD drive.
Thank you advance and sorry about the long-winded post.
Cheers,
Rey
MacBook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.8) 2GB, Core 2 Duo 17"

A waste of time and blank DVD's.
Export to "tape" (back to the camera with a blank tape inserted). Cheap, real time and easy to do.
"Copy" your iMovie Project to external Firewire HD. Cheap (comparatively), reliable and drag and drop easy.
A simple scratch on one of your backed up DVD's could render it useless. Hard to store "large" Project files onto DVD media.
No difference in the data on a DVD and the same data on a hard drive. Saving the entire iMovie Project as "data" would allow you to "Open iMovie Project" in iMovie and continue editing as if you left it yesterday.
Better to concentrate on saving the original "capture" in .dv format. Export entire movies back to tape. Export "clips" as QuickTime (Full Quality). These .dv files can be burned to DVD as "data". Just try and keep the file size under the size of the media. DV Stream is 13 GB per hour so you would need 3 DVD's to burn it.
Backup (.Mac members get it) can be used on "large" files and is smart enough to allow "spanning" multiple discs so your large project could fit in your safety deposit box.

Moving iMovie projects to External

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