iMovie 10 project stuck importing clips

Question

iMovie 10 project stuck importing clips

Bummer. Hours of work creating new 37 minute iMovie v10.4 project. Half the video Clips placed in timeline from Photos v10.0 have red bar across bottom. They play as a still image, but display as a video filmstrip, and the video can’t be played or edited. iMovie won’t close, activity monitor says “Processing Importing File.” 15 hours now, no change.

I’m stuck. Any ideas?

iMac 24 (2023) M3

16 GB memory

Sequoya 15.3.1

Apple SSD 1.4 TB available

iPhoto backed up in iCloud

Wi-Fi wireless 5G (just tested over 600 GBS download speed)

iMac 24″

Posted on Mar 15, 2025 11:54 AM

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Answer 1

Rich839

Level 8

48,018 points

Mar 16, 2025 10:53 AM in response to stephenfrombeaverton

HI,

Try deleting preferences. Open iMovie while holding down the Optionand Command keys and select to delete preferences in the box that appears. iMovie will open in a new empty library. Reopen your old library to get back to your projects. (To reopen your old library close iMovie and go to your Movie folder or wherever you have your old iMovie library stored. Double click on the library’s icon. iMovie will open in that library.) Possibly

you may need to reboot to set the changes. Deleting preferences is a safe procedure that

will not cause data loss or disruption to your project.

If still no luck, try copying your project's timeline media to a newly created project. Do an Edit/Select All, Edit/Copy, in your current project. Then do an Edit/Paste in the timeline of the newly created project. to copy over the media. You edits will be preserved.

-- Rich

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Answer 2

Mar 19, 2025 12:32 PM in response to stephenfrombeaverton

Thanks for these great ideas. Regretfully, none worked. I gave up and deleted the project, and deleted the new project created when attempting to cut/paste into a new timeline.

I’m starting over. This time, I’m exporting the project media from iCloud to my native Apple ssd before beginning. I plan to import the media to iMovie directly from the ssd. Eliminate the cloud storage from the media in the iMovie library.

i can’t test this, but I suspect when building the iMovie project from media on Apple iCloud, it was corrupted while importing. This time, I’m exporting the project media from iCloud to my native Apple ssd before beginning. I plan to import media into a new iMovie project directly from the SSD on the Mac.

Unfortunately, exporting the media from ICloud is now giving me problems. Half the files I export from iCloud Photo show up as “temp files” on my native ssd.

wish me luck!

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Answer 3

Mar 19, 2025 1:14 PM in response to stephenfrombeaverton

Fail. Fail. Fail. Media imported from iCloud Photo to native SSD cannot be imported to an iMovie from the desktop. Import in IMovie brings up a file browser to find the media to import. No files are visible. The Desktop (where I exported all the media from iCloud to a file) shows empty. I can import from Photo, but those files are actually in the cloud. I’m back where I started. Hours wasted, no project.

my iMovie 9 projects didn’t have these problems.

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Answer 4

Mar 15, 2025 7:09 PM in response to stephenfrombeaverton

Hard reset. Reopened project. No change.

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iMovie 10 project stuck importing clips