How do I save a project I have worked on in iMovie?

Question

Level 1

5 points

How do I save a project I have worked on in iMovie?

This is my first time working on iMovie and I'm used to PCs were you can File>Save something you are working on. So with iMovie, if I want to save a project, how do I do this?

Macbook, Mac OS X (10.6.1)

Posted on Aug 4, 2010 11:27 AM

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Answer 1

Aug 4, 2010 12:51 PM in response to Jezz12

Which version of iMovie do you have? Starting with iMovie '08, every time you make a change to your project, it is automatically saved. Pretty sweet eh?

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Answer 2

JamesJM

Level 1

64 points

Aug 4, 2010 12:53 PM in response to Jezz12

iMovie projects are saved automatically. Should you make some edits, then quit, your edits will still be there when you return.

And it does this withOUT changing your source media. IOW... you can always return to the original media as it was imported. Unless... you choose the option to delete the unused portions of the clips you have edited.

Good thing to keep in mind is the 'undo' function. If you quit imovie your edits will remain.. but I believe you will lose the 'undo' function from your last session.. they will begin anew when you start to edit once again.

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Answer 3

Jezz12 Author

Level 1

5 points

Aug 4, 2010 1:25 PM in response to TheWatchfulOne

I have iMovie 9. My only issue with iMovie right now is when I quit iMovie and want to go back and add to my project - nothing comes up in iMovie. How can I import my project back into iMovie? I've tried "import" with all 3 options listed ie. Movies.., iMovie HD project.. and camera archives.. - nothing seems to work.

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Answer 4

JamesJM

Level 1

64 points

Aug 4, 2010 1:37 PM in response to Jezz12

Sorry If I'm covering the 'obvious' here... Jezz12. Just making sure.

Are you sure the project is not there? couple of things... sometimes it takes a while for everything to load... are you waiting long enough? I would think 30 seconds would be sufficient.

At the top left you'll see a "Projects" tab... have you clicked that to see if you project is listed?

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Answer 5

Jezz12 Author

Level 1

5 points

Aug 4, 2010 2:03 PM in response to JamesJM

Thanks for replying. I see that my project is saved in a folder that I created. Its still in the ".rcproject" file type. I'm not able to open this file by clicking on it or by importing it to iMovie.

This may seem like a dumb question, but am I suppose to go to "Share > export > export movie" in order to have this file saved so that I can work on it later on?

Or is this ".rcproject" suppose to open in iMovie?

Answering your question - Yes, I've clicked on the "projects" tab and it says "create new project", but there is nothing under this project. It's blank, instead of showing my project that I have created.

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Answer 6

JamesJM

Level 1

64 points

Aug 4, 2010 2:43 PM in response to Jezz12

You may wish to try and physically move the project file back into the default location imovie stores project information. It sounds like you have moved the project so that iMovie does not know where it is or where any of the associated clips for the project reside on your computer.

The default location, (but perhaps you changed this), is in user/movies/imovie project. Where "user" is the shortname for your account on your computer. Try moving the .rcproject back into this location and then restarting iMovie.

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Answer 7

Jezz12 Author

Level 1

5 points

Aug 4, 2010 6:59 PM in response to JamesJM

Thanks so much! I think this is the main problem why my project wasn't opening.

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Answer 8

Aug 4, 2010 8:09 PM in response to TheWatchfulOne

Sweet except when you don't want to save your changes, or when iMovie crashes and you don't know when it last saved automagically-sweet-like.

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Answer 9

Sep 16, 2010 9:59 AM in response to Matthew Connolly3

I'm using iMovie 09, 8.0.6 and the auto save feature isn't working. I made a lot of edits to titles, quit the program, and this morning when I opened it again, none of the edits were saved. Very frustrating. Seems to be some kind of bug?

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Answer 10

Sep 18, 2010 11:48 AM in response to Solutionary

I had the same problem; autosave not autosaving, hours of work lost, anger, resentment, etc. Silly me had put iMovie in a folder in Applications (with several other applications that I only use occasionally, so as to save space on my dock). I took it out of that folder and put it back in Applications. Bugs fixed, problem solved, works fine now.

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Answer 11

grf819

Level 1

12 points

Dec 8, 2010 10:28 AM in response to deutsch als hauptfach

Well, I wish had the same luck it saved the project, but in its earliest form - not so automatic, my friends!! Mucho frustration!!!!!

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Answer 12

grf819

Level 1

12 points

Dec 8, 2010 10:30 AM in response to TheWatchfulOne

I'm sorry, but mine was not automatically saved - it saved the project, but just to the point of importing some clips - all work lost - frustrated!!

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