copy project, with project media
In iMovie 10.2.2, is there a way to Copy Project & Project Media to an external drive, in one step?
I have many movie projects I wanted to backup to a backup drive, and I had to figure out how to do this thru several trial and error attempts... 'Copy (selected project) to library...' sounds like you'd be copying a Project & its media to the destination. But this is not true... I figured out that in iMovie there are 'Project Files', and 'media'. When you create a new movie project, you may drag in media from various places, and iMovie will create pointers to where each media resides. If you simply copy the 'Project File' (or move) to an external drive movie library, then open the project on a different Mac, you'll realize the project will open, but the media will be marked 'missing media'.
To properly have the ability to copy a project to an external drive and work on different computers, you must use this process... 1st Copy each project to the backup drive movie library, 2nd open the backup library in iMovie, 3rd Consolidate Project Media on every single project you copied. Then you can shut down, remove backup drive, open backup library on a different computer in iMovie and you'll have both the Project files & media that was in the project. I figured this out the hard way, and it really is a pain in the butt!! Apple should change it to be more clear, like this... 'copy project without consolidating media' or 'copy project with consolidated media'. I'm not sure who would ever want to copy (project) only, unless your media is always on the Mac internal drive and you never work with media that is not on your internal drive. For people that make a lot of videos and want to use external HDs to archive their work and save space on their internal HD, the process I described is the only way that works.
Wish list requests for iMovie:
- more clear commands... 'Copy Project without Consolidating Media' (this is the existing copy command) and 'Copy Project with Consolidated Media' (new command that doesn't exist yet).
- ability to select more than one project, and perform above commands (or move command).
- more clear command... 'Move Project without Consolidating Media' (this is the existing move command) and 'Move Project with Consolidated Media' (new command that doesn't exist yet).
- ability to backup an entire library easily, that would copy project files & media. I know this might take a long time depending on the size of the library, but a better progress indicator would help (see next item).
- better indicators (than tiny progress circle) about what is happening. A pop up message that explained the function in progress, with estimated time to complete, and a much much bigger progress bar with % would be much better. Sometimes, waiting for so long watching the tiny progress circle and not knowing how it will take to finish, is unnerving :)
Another issue I found is now that I have installed Final Cut Pro, I've noticed that my iMovie media has moved from the iMovie library package file, to some FCP folders. Luckily, the backup process I describe above still works, but if for some reason I rename the backup library (for example, add a date to the file name to keep multiple dated backups), it will cease to open because all the media location pointers still point to the originally named locations.