I am trying to transfer iMovie to an external drive to save storage on my MacBook Air. i follow the instructions but only some of the the film clip come across with the drag and drop. Am I missing something?
MacBook Air 13″, macOS 10.15
You don't describe how you are doing it but here is the procedure.
Drag your iMovie Library from your Movies folder onto the external hard drive.
Leave the iMovie app on your MB Air of course.
That's it.
You don't describe how you are doing it but here is the procedure.
Drag your iMovie Library from your Movies folder onto the external hard drive.
Leave the iMovie app on your MB Air of course.
That's it.
Two more things:
2.Before transferring your library click on your library’s name in the media sidebar and do a File/Consolidate Library Media. That way you will insure that all your media will transfer with the library.
— Rich
Hello Ian
I've followed the procedure and tried a couple of times but only part of the Library copies to the external drive. s his first screen shot shows my Mac when IMovie is opened (these are the only files I have in iMovie)
Following the procedure I progress to this screen ...
I then open I Movie as saved to the External drive ....
and you can see many of the movies clips appear as blanks. I've trued double clicking etc without success. I've tried reformatting the external hard drive - no change.
I hope you can help me out.
Regards
Morris J
I've taken these screen shots
The first shows the pop up that appears when I select preferences from the iMovie drop down menu.
The second is the screen that shows with 'Cmd and Option' keys are held when iMovie is launched. Is this what I should be seeing? I haven't come across the FCP X/iMovie term before.
If this is what I would expect to see I will 'give it a go '
Thanks MJ
"FCP X" stands for Final Cut Pro X which is the professional version of iMovie . . . deleting the preferences is the same with both apps.
You shut down iMovie and then open it whilst holding down the Cmd-option keys until the popup appears.
You then click on "Delete Preferences" which should be highlighted in blue.
That's all there is to it.
iMovie will open but there will be no project in it. . . . like when you first ever opened iMovie.
So you will have to navigate to your iMovie Library, which is usually in the "Movies" folder and double-click it to put it back into iMovie.
I can confirm the external drive was formatted Mac OS Extended (journaled).
When I did the 'File/Consolidate Library media this message appeared: There is no media to consolidate ... as it already exists.
I dragged the library to the new drive again and the screen shots are exactly the same - no new clips appear.
One more thing . . . it may be nothing to do with it but give it a try . . . delete the iMovie Preferences and see whether that has any effect.
Deleting the Preferences.
If FCP X/iMovie start behaving unexpectedly in any way for no apparent reason, the problem could be caused by corrupt preference files.
The cure for this is to delete the preferences.
Hold down the Cmd and Option keys as you launch FCP X/iMovie and a window will appear asking if you wish to delete the preferences.
Click “Delete Preferences” and FCP X/iMovie will open in the default (as-new) mode with no projects etc. on the interface.
You will have to navigate to any project you were working on and reopen it.
Deleting preferences is completely safe and because of its simplicity it should be the first thing you do when troubleshooting.
I have no idea what is going on but just try opening the original Library on your Mac once again to check whether the files are still there or whether they too have disappeared.
iMovie transfer to external drive
