Something is wrong, photos does't let me select a movie frame to pose as the poster or thumbnail. When previewing via photos, how do you tell which video is which? Since mine all start black, all my thumbnails are black.
Mac mini, macOS 10.15
Did you perhaps upgrade to macOS 11 Big Sur? In Big Sur the tool to set a poster frame has been moved to the Edit Tools. The gears-icon is gone.
Did you perhaps upgrade to macOS 11 Big Sur? In Big Sur the tool to set a poster frame has been moved to the Edit Tools. The gears-icon is gone.
On Big Sur you have two options, see this user tip: How to extract a Still Frame from a Video Clip in Photos 6 on Big Sur… - Apple Community
You may have noticed, that the editing tools for videos have been vastly improved in Photos 6 after the Big Sur upgrade. We can now use the full Edit dialog for videos as well - straighten the video, crop it, add adjustments. However, the very useful gears icon in the video controls, with the command to save a still frame, is gone now.
There are two options to save a still frame:
Save the current keyframe as the still frame (this may have a lesser resolution then the video itself):
Double click the video to open it enlarged. Click "Edit".
Use the video controls to find the frame you want and click "Make poster frame".
Click "Done".
Select the thumbnail of the video, use ⌘C to copy it and paste it into a Finder window. You will now have a new JPEG saved to the Finder.
Use Quicktime Player as an external editor. This way you can save a still frame in the same resolution as the video.
Select the thumbnail of the video in Photos and use the command "Image > Edit with > QuickTime Player.
When QuickTime Player opens, use the video controls to find the frame you want to save.
Use the command "Edit > Copy" or the keyboard shortcut ⌘C to copy the frame you want to save to the clipboard.
Now open Preview and use the command "File > New from Clipboard" to save the copied frame as a new image in Preview. This will open a new image with the name "Untitled"
In Preview use the command "File > Export" to save the "untitled" document as an image file in a high quality.
Import the new still image to Photos, if you want to save it there.
Gear is gone!
Leonie (next post) suggested it was my upgrade to Big Sur. Should have known, Apple does't normally get rid of functional things, they re-arrange it (Hide it from suborn, old guys). Found it moved to edit tools.
It is working in my catalina - what do you see when you click the gear wheel?
Glad you found it 😊
And how that poster frame can be saved as a photo? in previous mac OS used to be saved in my pictures automatically, but now I don't know where they are saved if so. Can you help me?
It works!, thank you
Set poster frames or thumbnail in photos no longer works.
