You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

iMovie transfer to external drive

I am trying to transfer iMovie to an external drive to save storage on my MacBook Air. i follow the instructions but only some of the the film clip come across with the drag and drop. Am I missing something?

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Sep 1, 2020 12:43 AM

Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Sep 1, 2020 3:45 AM

You don't describe how you are doing it but here is the procedure.


Drag your iMovie Library from your Movies folder onto the external hard drive.


Leave the iMovie app on your MB Air of course.


That's it.

Similar questions

8 replies

Sep 4, 2020 9:41 PM in response to Community User

Two more things:


  1. Your external drive should be formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Otherwise your iMovie library could lose data. Reformatting a drive erases all data on it, so back up anything that you want to keep.


2.Before transferring your library click on your library’s name in the media sidebar and do a File/Consolidate Library Media. That way you will insure that all your media will transfer with the library.


— Rich

Sep 4, 2020 8:41 PM in response to Ian R. Brown

Hello Ian


I've followed the procedure and tried a couple of times but only part of the Library copies to the external drive. s his first screen shot shows my Mac when IMovie is opened (these are the only files I have in iMovie)


Following the procedure I progress to this screen ...


I then open I Movie as saved to the External drive ....



and you can see many of the movies clips appear as blanks. I've trued double clicking etc without success. I've tried reformatting the external hard drive - no change.


I hope you can help me out.


Regards

Morris J


Sep 5, 2020 9:25 PM in response to Ian R. Brown

I've taken these screen shots

The first shows the pop up that appears when I select preferences from the iMovie drop down menu.


The second is the screen that shows with 'Cmd and Option' keys are held when iMovie is launched. Is this what I should be seeing? I haven't come across the FCP X/iMovie term before.

If this is what I would expect to see I will 'give it a go '


Thanks MJ

Sep 6, 2020 1:55 AM in response to Community User

"FCP X" stands for Final Cut Pro X which is the professional version of iMovie . . . deleting the preferences is the same with both apps.


You shut down iMovie and then open it whilst holding down the Cmd-option keys until the popup appears.


You then click on "Delete Preferences" which should be highlighted in blue.



That's all there is to it.


iMovie will open but there will be no project in it. . . . like when you first ever opened iMovie.


So you will have to navigate to your iMovie Library, which is usually in the "Movies" folder and double-click it to put it back into iMovie.

Sep 4, 2020 10:23 PM in response to Rich839

I can confirm the external drive was formatted Mac OS Extended (journaled).


When I did the 'File/Consolidate Library media this message appeared: There is no media to consolidate ... as it already exists.

I dragged the library to the new drive again and the screen shots are exactly the same - no new clips appear.

Sep 5, 2020 1:07 AM in response to Ian R. Brown

One more thing . . . it may be nothing to do with it but give it a try . . . delete the iMovie Preferences and see whether that has any effect.


Deleting the Preferences.


If FCP X/iMovie start behaving unexpectedly in any way for no apparent reason, the problem could be caused by corrupt preference files. 


The cure for this is to delete the preferences. 


 Hold down the  Cmd and Option keys as you launch FCP X/iMovie and a window will appear asking if you wish to delete the preferences. 


Click “Delete Preferences” and FCP X/iMovie will open in the default (as-new) mode with no projects etc. on the interface. 


You will have to navigate to any project you were working on and reopen it. 


Deleting preferences is completely safe and because of its simplicity it should be the first thing you do when troubleshooting.

iMovie transfer to external drive

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.