imovie magnetic snap override

O.K. It appears that iMovie is not working properly, because it shouldn't be doing what you describe. Try deleting preferences and see if that resolves it. 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.

Also, try creating a new project and move your media into it. You can open your present project and do an Edit/Select All, Edit/Copy, and then open the new project, click in the timeline, and do an Edit/Paste of the media into the timeline of the new project. Your edits will carry over.

Have you tried inserting a background as a spacer so that your newly inserted clip does not snap back to the previous clip?

-- Rich

Also, you have a pretty complicated project timeline. If none of the previous suggestions work, you might try sharing out the project to your desktop as an independent movie to consolidate all those clips into one long clip. You'll still have your original editable project intact, so nothing lost.

After you have exported the original project as an independent movie, create a new project and import the independent movie into it as one long clip. You then can split the clip here and there to add new clips. I can't tell whether that procedure would be suitable for your situation, but might be worth a try. If nothing else, you will at least have preserved all of your edits.

-- Rich

From your screen shot I'm not quite clear as to what you are trying to do and what happens. Are you dragging the video clip into the upper or main (lower) timeline track?

The snapping on/off feature applies only to the last little bit of the space between the two clips, audio and upper timeline. With snapping on, when you drag the adjacent audio clip, or vid clips in the upper timeline track, to within about an eighth of an inch of the other clip, the clips will jump together so that they are touching. With snapping off, you would need to manually slide the clips together or leave a small space if you want. They won't jump together. All clips in the main timeline snap together, like magnets, with no space left between them, whether or not you have snapping selected. Clips inserted in the upper timeline above a background or other clip, can be moved around freely with space left between them, as your screen shot shows that you are doing.

The only way around the snapping problem for the main timeline clips is to insert a background spacer between the clips.

-- Rich

Best of luck with your project.

-- Rich