why when I import videos into iMovie from my desktop that I recorded with my iPhone 12, the videos are all out of order. there are 68 videos and they are all out of order. how do I fix it and how do I make it not happen?
iMac 27″, macOS 10.14
iMovie will import clips in order of their creation date. Once you get the clips into iMovie you can sort by date, name or duration. See this help link for more details on how to do it:
https://help.apple.com/imovie/mac/10.1/#/movdd0339f07
Also, in the media browser you can select a clip and adjust its date and time, and change file creation dates. Select the clip in the media browser and click on Modify/Adjust Clip Date and Time.
You don't need to copy your video files to your desktop before importing into iMovie. You can import directly into iMovie, or import into the Photos app and then access your videos from the Photos item in the side bar of an iMovie project. Also, from the photos app you can choose to export to a desktop folder in a sequence so the clips are placed in a particular order. I believe that the order will be preserved when you thereafter drag the clips into iMovie. But if it is not, you can sort by name or date as described above.
-- Rich
iMovie will import clips in order of their creation date. Once you get the clips into iMovie you can sort by date, name or duration. See this help link for more details on how to do it:
https://help.apple.com/imovie/mac/10.1/#/movdd0339f07
Also, in the media browser you can select a clip and adjust its date and time, and change file creation dates. Select the clip in the media browser and click on Modify/Adjust Clip Date and Time.
You don't need to copy your video files to your desktop before importing into iMovie. You can import directly into iMovie, or import into the Photos app and then access your videos from the Photos item in the side bar of an iMovie project. Also, from the photos app you can choose to export to a desktop folder in a sequence so the clips are placed in a particular order. I believe that the order will be preserved when you thereafter drag the clips into iMovie. But if it is not, you can sort by name or date as described above.
-- Rich
The videos seem to have a new date on them after they were copied to the desktop as this is required to bring them into iMovie. So I don't know what to do. This drives me crazy. there has to be a better way. if iMovie requires me to copy the videos to my desktop prior to importing them into iMovie, why can't it figure out the original date and time of each video clip so that they are all in order..
thank you Rich, however, I think you might be mistaken. If I drag from photos to iMovie, all I get is still images. you have to drag to desktop first and then copy to imovie for videos. Also when this happens, again I say, the creation date is the new date of which I copied into desktop. So you can't do pretty much anything you just suggested. I thought I was the one who needed help. not you guys.
I didn't tell you to drag the videos from the Photos app into iMovie. If you do that, then yes you are right that you get a still image. What I said was that there is an option to export from Photos to your desktop (File/Export) choosing the sequential option. Or you can access the videos from the Photos item in an iMovie project media sidebar. And if you just try you can do everything that I suggested.
This is a consumer forum of iMovie users just like yourself. Having a snarky attitude will get you nowhere here.
Best of luck in solving your issue.
-- Rich
You are very welcome. Yeah, movie editing issues can be very frustrating. No offense taken. Many people have reported problems with preserving the order of imports. Sometimes there is no easy answer.
Often things like file dates are not part of the metadata of a file, but rather internally organizational for a specific app and don't get carried over when transferred. The folks on the Photos for Mac forum have commented that it is a lot of work to preserve creation dates on files exported. Perhaps before exporting you could type the creation date in the file name and see if that carries over. Try it with one test video and see. Also, I think that if you type a sequential number in front of each file name, like 1-File name, 2-File name, etc. and then do a File/Export from Photos choosing the Sequential export option, you will be able to preserve the order. I'm not sure whether the order will then be preserved when importing into iMovie, but I think it might. If it doesn't you can use the sorting tools that I mentioned in my earlier post.
Good luck with this.
-- Rich
Thank you Rich. I must have been Hangry. Anyways yes I found out the you have to go into export and do it that way. The information on apples site doesn't say this even. So thank you for helping.
why when I import videos into iMovie from my desktop that I recorded with my iPhone 12, the videos are all out of order. there are 68 videos and they are all out of order. how do I fix it and how do I make it not happen?
