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Imovie for old Mac OS

Help, please! How can I download imovie if my computer doesn't support the new version of the app?

MacBook Air 11", macOS 10.12

Posted on Jan 26, 2020 3:37 AM

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Posted on Jan 26, 2020 8:58 AM

What is the model and date of your Mac, and what operating system are you presently using? Do you have, or have you ever had, iMovie 10 on your computer before?


You need Mojave or Catalina on your Mac in order to be able to download current iMovie. If you are not able to upgrade to one of those you might be able to update to an iMovie version that your present operating system will run, provided that you either have an iMovie 10 version on your Mac, or once did have an iMovie version on your Mac but may have deleted it. If that is your situation, drag your iMovie app to the trash, but don't empty the trash. (You don't need to do that step if you had already deleted iMovie in the past.) Then sign in to the app store with the same Apple I.D. that you had used to purchase your earlier iMovie 10. Click on your name at the bottom of the app store side bar to open your purchases folder, where you will see all of your purchases, including iMovie. See if you can update it from there. If the download is not available, remove your old iMovie from the trash, if you dragged it there, and replace it in the applications folder.


If you cannot get iMovie 10 from the app store you may need to go on the internet to see if you can find a download somewhere. Not all such websites are safe so be careful. Sometimes Amazon has earlier versions, like iMovie 6 as a part of the iLife '06 package. Although iMovie 6 is a very old version it still is an excellent app, although it can be a little tricky to download and get working on the newer operating systems, like Sierra. I have iMovie 6 on Mojave and it works there and it worked on Sierra. iMovie 8 or 9 are possibilities if you can find them, although they are not fully functional on operating systems after El Capitan.


-- Rich






-- Rich

5 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Jan 26, 2020 8:58 AM in response to ekaterina52

What is the model and date of your Mac, and what operating system are you presently using? Do you have, or have you ever had, iMovie 10 on your computer before?


You need Mojave or Catalina on your Mac in order to be able to download current iMovie. If you are not able to upgrade to one of those you might be able to update to an iMovie version that your present operating system will run, provided that you either have an iMovie 10 version on your Mac, or once did have an iMovie version on your Mac but may have deleted it. If that is your situation, drag your iMovie app to the trash, but don't empty the trash. (You don't need to do that step if you had already deleted iMovie in the past.) Then sign in to the app store with the same Apple I.D. that you had used to purchase your earlier iMovie 10. Click on your name at the bottom of the app store side bar to open your purchases folder, where you will see all of your purchases, including iMovie. See if you can update it from there. If the download is not available, remove your old iMovie from the trash, if you dragged it there, and replace it in the applications folder.


If you cannot get iMovie 10 from the app store you may need to go on the internet to see if you can find a download somewhere. Not all such websites are safe so be careful. Sometimes Amazon has earlier versions, like iMovie 6 as a part of the iLife '06 package. Although iMovie 6 is a very old version it still is an excellent app, although it can be a little tricky to download and get working on the newer operating systems, like Sierra. I have iMovie 6 on Mojave and it works there and it worked on Sierra. iMovie 8 or 9 are possibilities if you can find them, although they are not fully functional on operating systems after El Capitan.


-- Rich






-- Rich

Jan 27, 2020 11:23 AM in response to Rich839

Hi Rich, I am old school and run iMovie 6 HD and iDVD on two older Macs with OS's 10.8.5 to 10.13.6. Hope to keep them going for a while yet. In June this year I lashed out on a new iMac with Mojave to assist me with graphics production and Flight simulator. (8Gb GPU). I installed iMovie 6 HD and did the mods for the LeVersion string. Works great as I import anything through a Canopus ADVC 110. Any camera any video source. I noticed that you run iMovie 6 on Mojave and was wondering, when you scrub through the video, does it play at scrub speed or does the picture stop and wait for you to stop dragging the slider to display the picture. I can scrub at a very good speed using shift and right arrow then back up to the correct frame. Just wondering if this is an idiosyncrasy of Mojave and iMovie 6.

Love to read your posts each day, even I learn the odd tip but it is so frustrating to read how much the general public don't know.

Been retired for six years now but spent fifty years in professional video and audio production. Use FCP v6 on older machine but just can't get my head around FCP X.


Regards, David.


Jan 27, 2020 6:14 PM in response to Rich839

Sorry about that. When I drag the playhead L-R or R-l, the picture motion stops until I stop the playhead, then the picture displays from that point. If I drag it slow enough, the picture will display but only frame by frame. Normally when you drag the playhead, the picture will display regardless of the speed.

Jan 28, 2020 1:57 PM in response to logic79

I noticed the same thing. You need to hold down the shift key and right arrow to get it to scrub with any speed. Or, you can hold down the Option and Command keys while dragging the playhead. I don't know whether this was the way it acted before Mojave. It's been awhile since I used iMovie 6, so can't recall.


-- Rich

Imovie for old Mac OS

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