How do I access Photos from iMovie on my Mac (High Sierra)? When I search, I see the beginnings of the answer to this question (saying drag/drop can't be done), but when I click on the link, it does not take me to the rest of the sentence that tells me how.
Hi,
You can access the Photos app from iMovie by clicking on the photos item in the iMovie media sidebar.
However, iMovie will not recognize the Photos app unless the Photos app library is set up as the system photo library. To do that, open the Photos app and in the menu click on Photos/Preferences. In the box that appears, click on the box that says "use as system library". If it is grayed out, then the Photos library is already your system library and you need not do anything further.
Now close and then reopen iMovie. Open a project in iMovie. You should see a Photos item listed in the side bar. Click on that and you will have access to all of the photos in your Photos library for use in iMovie.
Another way to import photos from your Photos app library into iMovie is to open the Photos app and select File/Export. You will get a box giving you the option to export the Original of the photo or a Modified version if you have made modifications.. Once you make your selection and click Export you will get a box where you can select your destination, e.g, Desktop. Using the export function allows the exported photo to retain its name and EXIF data.
You can also drag a photo from the Photos app into iMovie, but you can't do it directly. You must first drag the photo to your desktop and from there you can drag it into iMovie.
-- Rich
Hi,
You can access the Photos app from iMovie by clicking on the photos item in the iMovie media sidebar.
However, iMovie will not recognize the Photos app unless the Photos app library is set up as the system photo library. To do that, open the Photos app and in the menu click on Photos/Preferences. In the box that appears, click on the box that says "use as system library". If it is grayed out, then the Photos library is already your system library and you need not do anything further.
Now close and then reopen iMovie. Open a project in iMovie. You should see a Photos item listed in the side bar. Click on that and you will have access to all of the photos in your Photos library for use in iMovie.
Another way to import photos from your Photos app library into iMovie is to open the Photos app and select File/Export. You will get a box giving you the option to export the Original of the photo or a Modified version if you have made modifications.. Once you make your selection and click Export you will get a box where you can select your destination, e.g, Desktop. Using the export function allows the exported photo to retain its name and EXIF data.
You can also drag a photo from the Photos app into iMovie, but you can't do it directly. You must first drag the photo to your desktop and from there you can drag it into iMovie.
-- Rich
Hi Rich - Thanks for the reply. Before posting, I had figured out to export from Photos to a file on my DeskTop and then import into iMovie. The last time I did this was almost two years ago, and I thought I remembered there was an easier way. Note that I have many libraries in Photos, with many albums in each library.
First I tried to set the Photos app as the system photo library (with misgivings because I have more than one library). I clicked on "use as system library" which was not grayed out, closed and reopened iMovie, and clicked on the Photos item listed on the sidebar. Nothing happened. Has this caused more problems for me? How do I uncheck the "use as system library" button?
Meanwhile, I think the result is that my solution of exporting to a DeskTop file and importing from there into iMovie is the best solution after all. Agree?
You uncheck the "use as system library" button by opening one of your other Photos libraries and making that one the system library. Your system library must be located in a place that iMovie can find it, such as on your computer or on a connected external drive. The library should be located at the root level of the drive, i.e, not in any other folder.
Importing into iMovie from the desktop is a very workable solution.
-- Rich
Okay, so one of the libraries has to be the System Library. The library I used as the System Library is indeed on my computer, but I guess iMovie got confused and couldn't find it. I already used the DeskTop file solution.
Thanks very much for your help.
You are welcome.
One more thing that you can try is to close iMovie and then open it while holding down the Option and Command keys and selecting to delete preferences in the box that appears. iMovie will open in a new library. Reopen your old library to get back to your projects. Now see if iMovie will recognize your system Photos library. Importing from the desktop works fine, but it's nice to have the other option as well.
Best,
-- Rich
Learning iMovie 10.1.10
