You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

jillysmith21 Author

Level 1

4 points

iMovie Audio

When I try to open the Audio portion of iMovie it keeps giving me an error message of "2 files are protected and unavailable". It won't let me access iTunes for music to add to my video.

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.13

Posted on Dec 19, 2021 10:06 AM

Top-ranking reply

Rich839

Level 8

47,676 points

Posted on Dec 19, 2021 11:53 AM

The "protected and unavailable" message means that the songs are copyright protected and contain DRM (Digital Rights Management) protection. Files thus protected cannot be used in iMovie. There is no legal cure for it.

If the two iTunes songs that you purchased were purchased before Year 2009, they likely contained DRM protection. Songs purchased from iTunes after Year 2009 do not contain DRM protection. If you fall into the former category, you can try repurchasing the song.

Also, all songs from Apple Music contain DRM protection and are not usable in iMovie. The DRM protection is not removed by downloading the song to iTunes.

-- Rich

View in context

iMovie Audio

Similar questions