No files show up on external drive in iMovie

Hello community,

I am trying to import from an external seagate drive in iMovie but no files show up at all under "import" in iMovie from my seagate. Not one file shows up. I wanted to upload .mov content to edit. Any help?


Thank in advance.

Posted on Jul 19, 2021 5:15 PM

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Posted on Jul 22, 2021 11:05 PM

Try this.

I have copy pasted this from the FCP forum but it should still apply for iMovie.

When you read below , replace FCP with iMovie .



FCP requires "Full Disk Access". Go to System Preferences->Security & Privacy->Privacy, click Full Disk Access and add Final Cut Pro to the list if it is not there yet. Make sure that the box next to it is checked:


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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jul 22, 2021 11:05 PM in response to Surferdude012

Try this.

I have copy pasted this from the FCP forum but it should still apply for iMovie.

When you read below , replace FCP with iMovie .



FCP requires "Full Disk Access". Go to System Preferences->Security & Privacy->Privacy, click Full Disk Access and add Final Cut Pro to the list if it is not there yet. Make sure that the box next to it is checked:


Jul 19, 2021 11:24 PM in response to Surferdude012

Try deleting preferences. To delete 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. Now see if the files show up in the import window.


If no luck, as a workaround you can drag the files from the external drive into iMovie, or drag the files to your desktop and from there into iMovie.


-- Rich

Jul 22, 2021 7:23 PM in response to Surferdude012

Permission problems are a pain. Confirm from the Get Info box that iMovie has read and write permissions enabled. Other than that, I don't have any more ideas about how to get iMovie to read and import from the external drive. I suggest that you 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



Jul 20, 2021 11:22 AM in response to Rich839

Hi Rich, thanks for your answer.

I did try that as you suggested. External still doesn't show up and want too try and keep everything off my internal drive as it is very full. I deleted preferences. Do you know how I can change permissions in iMovie to see a mounted external drive? I consulted with a friend and was told this may be my problem, that iMovie just needs permission to read the external drive. We checked the format of my external as well and was mac OS extended journal.

Thanks for your help.

Chuck

Jul 23, 2021 11:07 AM in response to Rich839

Rich

Can't say I know a lot about this , but I think that this came in ( for FCP at least) with Catalina security features , so thought that it might also apply to iMovie .

Several similar posts over recent months on the FCP forum have been solved by doing this, but of course this may not solve the OPs problem with iMovie. Would be nice if it did.


For Surferdude012 ...Depending on the OS, the Security and Privacy could look like this instead of what I show above.

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No files show up on external drive in iMovie

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