iMovie using all my system memory

I’ve seen people post about this but no solutions actually work. I’ve been using a 2013 Trashcan mac.

I’ve been importing video from SD card for the better part of 5 years now without issue.

I only use external drives for media. My system drive has over 138GB available and I have 64GB system ram.

I suddenly have zero ability to import movies into my iMovie library. It appears to be copying the files, I watch as the dial goes and then moves onto the next one and I also watch the activity monitor (Memory tap) as the swap file begins to slowly climb. In the past I’ve been using 128 and 64GB cards with no issues. These are only 32 GB SD cards and I can’t get through any of them. I’ve tried copying the files to the drive directly and the same thing happens? The swap file will grow until the application shows 150GB of system memory is being used and then the system crashes. Additionally, all those files that appeared to be copied earlier are now marked with a video camera icon, that when moused over say the files are still on the card. There appears to be no way to select those and attempt to just re-import those select files so you have to start over. What is happening and how can I fix this?

Is there a suggested limit to how big external drive iMovie libraries should be? I’ve tried creating new libraries on different drives and that doesn’t fix it either? This is crazy! I’ve upgraded the system memory from 32 to 64 and it still happens. What am I missing here?

Thank you for any help.

Odd follow up. I created a new library. Imported a small selection of the videos into it. It worked but as it sat there open, (no longer copying and prompting me to eject the media) I watched the system memory climb as well as the swap file and the memory used went up to 55GB and the swap climbed to 40 GB. I was literally just moving the mouse. I had to quit iMovie to get it to stop? What is happening this this?