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Importing single projects from Time Machine

Without going through the long history of problems, I wound up adding an SSD to act as the boot drive for my iMac. I then restored an older iMovie library from Time Machine that I was sure was not corrupted. However, that did not include two more recent projects. I have located those projects in a more recent iMovie library in Time Machine (by using the Show Package Contents technique). The question is how to get just those two projects into the restored iMovie library. Note that to avoid corruption problems I am dragging folders/files from Time Machine rather than using the Time Machine restore function.


I believe I can get the target recent iMovie library by dragging it onto the desktop.


My question then is how to get just the two projects from that library into the new/restored iMovie library. I have located guides and forums discussing importing projects, but only from iOS or other devices, and I have not found anything that addresses my particular problem. Similarly, in iMovie the only project import option I can find is File > Import iOS project, which is not what I need to do.


So ... after I have dragged the target recent iMovie library onto the desktop, how can I import from it just the two projects that I want?


P.s. Because I am using a new SSD, I cannot get to previous iMovie backups by using the Finder Go/Home etc. path suggested in previous discussions here.

iMac 27″, macOS 14.6

Posted on Sep 6, 2024 11:46 PM

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1 reply

Sep 7, 2024 10:47 PM in response to Eliot Hudson

Well, I think I figured this out through poking around and experimenting. The trick is not importing. It is simply copying the Time Machine (backup) iMovie library to the desktop, then opening both the backup and current libraries at the same time, and then copying or moving the projects from the backup library to the current library. That seems to have worked.

Importing single projects from Time Machine

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