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User profile for user: cajunalton
cajunalton Author
User level: Level 1
23 points

macOS Photos and iMovie (Big Sur)

I am using macOS Photos app to manage all my photos and videos from my iPhone. As I attempt to create a movie using iMovie with photos and videos, I am having trouble getting the videos into my project. When I drop in media, it only adds a 4s still image from the 3 minute video. Photos seems unable to share the video with iMovie directly like it does with photos from the Photos app (drag and drop). There is no share option like it has with Messages and Mail. Since Photos keeps media inside a protected folder, I cannot just browse to it directly (at least easily) from iMovie and grab it.


Is my only choice to export the video to folder and then import into iMovie? This is a bit excessive in both time and space. Any tips or advice is appreciated.

MacBook Pro with Touch Bar

Posted on Feb 14, 2021 8:20 AM

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User profile for user: Rich839
Rich839
User level: Level 8
47,730 points

Posted on Feb 14, 2021 8:44 AM

Try clicking on the Photos item in the sidebar of an iMovie project. Your photos and videos will display in the media browser pane. From there you can drag them into an iMovie project. For this to work you must designate the Photos library as the system photo library in the Photos app General preferences. If the words "use as system photo library" are grayed out, that means that it is already your system photo library and you need do nothing further. If the words are not grayed out, click on the box to gray them out.


-- Rich

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User profile for user: Rich839
Rich839
User level: Level 8
47,730 points

Feb 14, 2021 8:44 AM in response to cajunalton

Try clicking on the Photos item in the sidebar of an iMovie project. Your photos and videos will display in the media browser pane. From there you can drag them into an iMovie project. For this to work you must designate the Photos library as the system photo library in the Photos app General preferences. If the words "use as system photo library" are grayed out, that means that it is already your system photo library and you need do nothing further. If the words are not grayed out, click on the box to gray them out.


-- Rich

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macOS Photos and iMovie (Big Sur)

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