My Downloaded, Purchased Music Won't Show up in iMovie

Apple Music cannot be used in iMovie. It is a subscription service and its songs are DRM protected. Even downloading them into iTunes will not remove the DRM protection.

I believe that songs can still be purchased from iTunes, and they should be DRM free and usable in iMovie. You might try that route.

-- Rich

So, as I understand your post, in the iMovie audio sidebar in timeline project view an iTunes item shows, but when clicked on no songs are displayed. Do you see a message in the iTunes display pane that says "x number of files are protected and unavailable"?

Try redownloading iMovie. To redownload iMovie 10, drag your iMovie 10 app from the Applications folder into the trash, but do not empty the trash. Sign in to the app store and open your purchases folder by clicking on your name at the bottom of the app store side bar. You will see your purchases displayed, including iMovie 10. Redownload iMovie from

there. If not successful, drag your present iMovie app out of the trash and return it to the Applications folder. However, it should be successful. Then check to see if your iTunes songs are displayed in iMovie.

-- Rich

Open your iTunes library and control-click on one of the listed songs that is not showing up in iMovie. In the drop down menu, select Song Info and then File (in the info box that appears). At the top of the box, under the heading Kind, it will tell if the song is DRM protected.

If it is shown as protected, then that explains why it is not showing up in iMovie.

If it is shown as an unprotected song, then an easy workaround would be to drag the unprotected song from your iTunes desktop and from there drag into an iMovie project timeline.

-- Rich

If Apple Music was anywhere involved in the chain to get the song to your iTunes library, that might cause the issue of being unable to drag the song out. Apple Music is a subscription service and all of its songs are protected. Downloading them to iTunes would not remove the protections.

I would caution against updating iTunes, if you were thinking of doing that, as some posters here have reported that doing so creates a CompressionKit:Error when one tries to share out from iMovie.

-- Rich

I think that you may be in the wrong iTunes screen. It looks like you clicked on Store and then Purchases in the right hand side bar, and then clicked on All/Songs to display your songs. You can't drag out from that screen. You want to be in the Store/Music/Library view that you access from the top of the screen. Then you will get a display of your iTunes library from where you can drag out your songs. Try that.

That's odd. I am able to drag a song from my iTunes library to my desktop. It must be from the library, not a playlist. Perhaps your tunes are stored in the cloud. If so, try downloading one to your library as a test, and drag that one out to your desktop.

-- Rich

I am having the same issue, however I do not think the song is protected. Under info-kind it says “apple music AAC audio file”. I cannot drag it to my desktop. The song was purchased yesterday and released in 2019 so it’s fairly new.

When dragging it, it doesn’t show the green plus when trying to put in onto the desktop. When I open iMovie it doesn’t show under purchased tab. Under music tab it says 1 file is protected and unavailable, I can’t even see the song. Weird because under info it says it’s not protected...

Are you holding the song for a moment on your desk top until the plus sign appears before releasing?

The dragging procedure works fine on my Mac running Mojave.

You might benefit by talking with Apple Support. Click on the Contact Support item at the top right of this forum’s screen. The Apple Support techs are pretty savvy.

— Rich