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User profile for user: dougieboy
dougieboy Author
User level: Level 1
9 points

iMovie on iMac lost nearly complete project

I am using iMovie 10.1.12 on iMac with OS X 10.13.6.


I have done many successful iMovie projects. On the most recent project, this morning I started iMac then iMovie to finish the project and my project was gone.


Many of its photo and video parts are in the event browser but the project pane is empty. I have restarted the computer and quit /reopened iMovie several times but no luck. An earlier iMovie community similar question with answers did not help.


Any steps I can take to get this project back?



iMac 21.5", macOS 10.13

Posted on Nov 15, 2019 12:44 PM

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User profile for user: Rich839
Rich839
User level: Level 8
47,742 points

Posted on Nov 16, 2019 7:31 AM

Try using the Library item that you see when you click on Go, and follow the file path from there. In other words skip the "Home" part of the file path.


You can also try opening iMovie 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 see if your projects are there.


If still no luck your only other option would be to use your Time Machine backup, if you keep one, to restore your library to a point in time that precedes the occurrence of the issue.


If you do need to redo the project, that's always a bummer. You might find that the second time through will be a lot faster because you already know what edits you intend to make.


-- Rich



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User profile for user: Rich839
Rich839
User level: Level 8
47,742 points

Nov 16, 2019 7:31 AM in response to dougieboy

Try using the Library item that you see when you click on Go, and follow the file path from there. In other words skip the "Home" part of the file path.


You can also try opening iMovie 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 see if your projects are there.


If still no luck your only other option would be to use your Time Machine backup, if you keep one, to restore your library to a point in time that precedes the occurrence of the issue.


If you do need to redo the project, that's always a bummer. You might find that the second time through will be a lot faster because you already know what edits you intend to make.


-- Rich



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User profile for user: Rich839
Rich839
User level: Level 8
47,742 points

Nov 15, 2019 3:29 PM in response to dougieboy

Hi,


First, make sure that you opened the correct library.


If all O.K, try retrieving your project from the iMovie backups folder. To get there, go to the Finder menu and follow this file Path:


Go/Home/Library/Containers/com.apple.iMovieApp/Data/Library/Caches/iMovieBackups


When you get there you will see a list of previous backups of your iMovie library. Open one that is dated just before you lost your project. iMovie will open in that library. Navigate to your Projects library and open your project. Hopefully it will still be intact.


-- Rich

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User profile for user: dougieboy
dougieboy Author
User level: Level 1
9 points

Nov 16, 2019 5:45 AM in response to Rich839

Thank you Rich. I followed your instructions and found that i don't seem to have an iMovie backups folder. In my Home folder there is no folder called Library.


There is a folder in Home called Movies that contains a lot of iMovie related items, including old events and an item called iMovie Library.imovielibrary . When I click that it opens iMovie with the proper events in the event browser but again, nothing in the project pane.


So it appears that I have no iMovie backups folder.


Your info in helpful because if there is no chance of recovery, I need to start the project again -- unhappily for me, it took about 90 hours the first time.


Again, thank you.

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User profile for user: dougieboy
dougieboy Author
User level: Level 1
9 points

Nov 16, 2019 10:53 AM in response to Rich839

Rich839, you are the man. extra help suggestion 1 did not work. I could not travel that file path because I don’t have any Library folder in Home. That probably isn’t good, so I have to figure out how to restore Library folder. 




But your extra help suggestion 2 solved the problem, at least so far. I did as you said, selected delete preferences in the box. Then I could see the missing project in the iMovie project pane. So I have saved it as an mp4 file which I can probably work on and finish, in case iMovie becomes tricky again.




In addition to no Library folder for iMovie items, the formerly lost item now appears not in the iMovie Library, as it did before, but only under Project Media. This may not be a real problem but perhaps when the project is complete I will download iMovie again. I already ran Disk Utility.

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iMovie on iMac lost nearly complete project

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