How to tell the length of a clip?

Hi, SJCryptic,

The absence of a duration label on a clip in the timeline has been reported by several posters here following the update to iMovie 10.1.15. It appears to be a glitch that Apple will need to fix.

Some posters have found that by placing the cursor on, or clicking on, the very last frame of the clip will reveal a pop-up of the duration. I am not running iMovie 10.1.15, so cannot verify that. But you can try it and see.

Another workaround is to select the clip and click on the information button (the circle with an "i" in it) in the toolbar at the top right hand corner of your screen. That will reveal a duration box just below and to the right of the toolbar, that displays the duration of the clip.

Still another option is to use a Time Machine backup, if you have one, to restore your iMovie 10.1.15 to the previous version that you were using.

You might also try deleting preferences, as often that works to cure issues. Open iMovie while holding down the Option and Command keys and select to delete preferences from the box that appears. iMovie will open in a new library. Reopen your old library to get back to your projects. Now see if the duration label appears on the clip.

-- Rich

Just to see what happens, try opening iMovie in your Mac's Guest Account. That has worked to cure some other glitches following the update to iMovie 10.1.15. Or, you could create a new user account from System Preferences/Users and Groups, and try opening iMovie from there.

Apple is aware of the glitches and I suspect that it is working to fix the conflicts.

-- Rich

Thank you for the suggestions. I will try them and see what happens, but I am not sure it's worth having to sign in/out of a guest account or a new user account to get the clip lengths. It doesn't seem to make the issue easier to deal with...

No, it won't make it easier. Just hopefully a temporary solution until Apple gets this fixed. I wanted to pass it along. But if iMovie works correctly in a new user account it would narrow the issue down to some conflict with your main user account.

-- Rich

If your iMovie library is on an external drive, formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled), and you open your Guest account in that library and do a project, I believe that you will be able to open iMovie in that library from your normal account and access the project. I would be curious to see if the transitions appear.

-- Rich

You might want to consider purchasing an external drive. Most people who work with movies have one due to the large file sizes involved with movies. You also need to have a place to backup your data in case your internal drive goes south, unless you are using a Time Machine backup. You can get a 1TB external drive for fairly cheap. I use the Western Digital Passport drive. There are others as well, such as those made by OWC. Your call of course.

-- Rich

Thank you for the recommendations. I have purchased a computer with enough space to work on movies and I use time machine to back up my computer. I only work on one movie at a time so I never have space issues...at least not yet! I do have some 4TB HDs to back up on if I run into any issues, but they are mainly for time machine and back up of back ups! HA!

Thanks! Great point!

Thanks, but I do not use an external drive.

O.K. :) Just covering the bases. As you probably know, your Time Machine backup should be on a drive dedicated only to Time Machine, according to Apple's recommendations.

-- Rich

I tried all you suggested, but it didn't work (aside from returning to the previous version. This is a bug that I HOPE Apple fixes. It's REALLY annoying. Having the length only at the end of the clip when I am trying to change it's length is not helpful at all and having to press the information for every clip every time is beyond annoying. I hope they hear our request and make a change.