Poor Performance with iMovie on new Mac Mini with M1

Hi,

Try working your way through these diagnostic procedures and see if any of them cure the sluggish performance.

Deleting Preferences

Open iMovie while holding down the Option and Command keys and select to delete preferences in the box that appears. iMovie will open in a new library. Reopen your old library to get back to your projects.  Deleting preferences is a safe procedure that will not cause data loss or disruption to your project.

New Project

Another thing you can try is to copy your media into a newly created project and see if that cures the problem. To do that, do an Edit/Select All, Edit/Copy, of the media in your project and then Edit/Paste it into the newly created project.

Safe Mode

You could also try booting up in Safe Mode (see Finder menu for instructions) and, after everything loads, immediately shut down and reboot in normal mode. Then see if iMovie works properly.

Updating iMovie

If none of the above work, try updating/redownloading iMovie 10. To update/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. Your purchases will be displayed, including iMovie 10. Redownload/update iMovie from there. If not successful, drag your present iMovie app out of the trash and return it to the Applications folder.

Contact

Apple Support

If still no luck, contact Apple Support.  The techs there have the capability of remotely accessing your computer that we cannot do here.  To contact apple support click on the Contact Support item in the upper right hand corner of this forum’s screen.  Navigate to a place where you can enter your phone number.

-- Rich