How to use only fragments of long videos AND save space?

Question

Level 1

25 points

How to use only fragments of long videos AND save space?

I'm shooting video of sports events and I end up with videos that are about 8GB per game. I'm creating a highlight reel of good moments from each game for the season, which means I only need to use maybe 100MB of video from each game.

I'm NOT a professional, just a dad, so I started using iMovie to do this. However, I'm finding that once I add the single 8GB game to my project, after I clip down to the 100MB of video I need in the project, there's nothing I can do to get rid of the unused video.

I know I could just export each set of highlights per game and then at the end of the season put them back together in one new project, but I don't like that because firstly the video would degrade with each export/import/export cycle. Also I want the flexibility of being able to rearrange the final selection of clips at the end of the season. If I do the above workaround, then I'd have all the clips per game. Unless I go through the process of exporting every single separate highlight clip... uggggh.

I already tagged the unused video as "rejected", but that's all I can do. It doesn't delete anything and I'm going to end up with hundreds of GB of video just sitting on my drive taking up space unnecessarily.

There's gotta be a better way... right? Please?

Posted on Mar 20, 2025 3:27 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Rich839

Level 8

48,030 points

Mar 21, 2025 1:50 PM in response to jeepish42

Hi,

Unfortunately, there's no better way. iMovie preserves all original media in the iMovie library. The editing clips that you work with in the project are not originals, but simply refer back to the original clip that is in the iMovie library, so no matter what you do to the clip in the iMovie project, whether you trim it or cut it or delete it, the entire original always remains in your iMovie library.

As you mentioned, you can share out the edited portion of the clip and then import it back in, and that would eliminate the residual media attached to it. I agree that that is very cumbersome and leaves you with a lot of extra gigabytes in your iMovie library for which you have no need. It would be more efficient to edit the whole project and then export it once. Once exported, you could then delete the original media from the iMovie library, if you have no further use for the unused footage and do not wish to keep the footage of the entire game. Otherwise you would need to store the entire game somewhere else.

The only other way that I can see to do it is to make your cuts before you import the clip into the iMovie library. Possibly you could do this by using the QuickTimePlayer on your Mac.

-- Rich

Reply

Quick Links

How to use only fragments of long videos AND save space?