iMovie output too big for a USB thumb drive? Losing quality?

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Level 1

4 points

iMovie output too big for a USB thumb drive? Losing quality?

BACKGROUND:

On MAC OS 10.14. I created a 10min long iMovie project with an output as a .mov file that is 10GB at 1080p. I purchased several 15GB USB thumb drives and when I try to move the 10GB .mov file, I get an error message stating, "the item <file name> can't be copied because it is too large for the volume's format.

When I open the .mov file in Quicktime and "export as" at 1080p, it reduces the file to 700MB at 1080p and I am able to place it on these USB thumb drives.

However, I'm concerned that because the file size goes from 10GB to less than 1GB, I'm losing some quality.

QUESTIONS:

1) If both files are output at 1080p, how do I determine if the smaller file is of worse quality than the 10GB file? (It looks fine on my computer screen but I want it to be as good as possible.)

2) Based on the description above, is there a way to successfully place a 10GB file on a 15GB USB drive? Is there a strategy I am missing or step I have overlooked?

thx

MacBook Pro 13", 10.14

Posted on Jan 27, 2019 4:25 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Rich839

Level 8

47,274 points

Jan 27, 2019 5:14 PM in response to mil8

Hi,

You are getting "too large" message because your thumb drive is formatted FAT 32, as most of them are. FAT 32 drives have a 4 GB file size limitation. Since your movie is bigger than 4 GB, you got the message, even though the overall capacity of the drive is 15 GB.

However, it is easy to fix. Reformat your thumb drive to Apple's Mac OS Extended (Journaled), that has no file size limitation. You can do that with the Disk Utility app on your Mac, located in Applications/Utilities. Here's a link that gives instructions on how to reformat a drive:

http://osxdaily.com/2012/01/04/format-an-external-hard-drive-or-usb-flash-drive-for-mac-os-x/

Once the drive is reformatted to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) you should have no trouble importing your video into it, assuming that it is smaller than the 15 GB capacity of the drive.

Note: Reformatting a drive erases all the data that was on it. So, back up any data that you want to keep.

-- Rich

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