can iMovie be run from an external drive, not external boot, just external drive.
IE: put the library on an external drive, or the app and Library?
Or with any method at all.
Alternatively, move current Lib to external and start anew on the boot?
Mac mini, macOS 15.6
Hi, Fritz Lang1,
I have several iMovie libraries and I run all of them off of an external drive. Double click on the library's icon and iMovie will open in that library. The iMovie app itself I keep on my internal drive. The iMovie app will refer to whatever external drive library that you open it in.
Videos take up a lot of space, so most people who work a lot with movies store their iMovie libraries on an external drive. The drive must be formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or APFS in order to store an iMovie library on it. If you need to reformat the drive, be aware that reformatting will erase all data on the drive. So back up elsewhere any data that you want to keep. Then reformat, and then move your iMovie library to it.
The iMovie app itself doesn't contain any media. The media is stored in the iMovie library in an Original Media folder for each project and event. The iMovie app refers to the media in the iMovie library. The thumbnails that you edit in iMovie are medium resolution thumbnails for editing purposes. They are not the original media.
-- Rich
Hi, Fritz Lang1,
I have several iMovie libraries and I run all of them off of an external drive. Double click on the library's icon and iMovie will open in that library. The iMovie app itself I keep on my internal drive. The iMovie app will refer to whatever external drive library that you open it in.
Videos take up a lot of space, so most people who work a lot with movies store their iMovie libraries on an external drive. The drive must be formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or APFS in order to store an iMovie library on it. If you need to reformat the drive, be aware that reformatting will erase all data on the drive. So back up elsewhere any data that you want to keep. Then reformat, and then move your iMovie library to it.
The iMovie app itself doesn't contain any media. The media is stored in the iMovie library in an Original Media folder for each project and event. The iMovie app refers to the media in the iMovie library. The thumbnails that you edit in iMovie are medium resolution thumbnails for editing purposes. They are not the original media.
-- Rich
I honestly haven't ever use iMovie, but with Apple's other apps using a library you can copy the entire iTunes/Music/Photos/whatever folder containing the library file to another drive and then start the application while holding down the option key. You are then asked to select the library file location.
Hey Rich839, do you know if I can run the database/library from an external drive?
Or can I move the whole library to an external drive and copy more recent stuff into a new library on the internal drive so as to minimize drive space?
Or make new libraries year over year and move the libraries off to an external drive?
kind of what I'm thinking too. But theres more to the iMovie database I need to research.
iTunes/Music and Photos don't maintain the same kind of database.
iMovie run from extrernal drive
