Imovie projects - how to organize many projects

You are correct that clicking on the Library item in the iMovie media sidebar will only reveal the media in the library, not the projects themselves.

Take a look at this Apple online help link that explains how to create and work with multiple libraries.

https://help.apple.com/imovie/mac/10.1/#/mov3fa25bae7

What you would be doing is to create a new library, name it whatever category you want, such as Vacations, and then copy all of your previously created Vacation projects into it. (You create a new library by opening iMovie while holding down the Option key, and then choosing to create a new library in the box that appears. Or, from within iMovie do a File/Open Library/New.) Once you have created the new Vacation library can move or copy your previously made Vacation projects into it as mentioined above, or create a new vacation project in it. Before moving a project, you should select it in the project browser and do a File/Consolidate Project media to insure that all of the project's media goes with it when you copy or move the project to another library. Here are a couple of more help links that explain the procedures.

How to consolidate media in a project or library:

https://help.apple.com/imovie/mac/10.1/#/mov882dee351

How to move and manage projects:

https://help.apple.com/imovie/mac/10.1/#/mov79fa23112

-- Rich

The ability to sort projects by categories is fairly limited in iMovie 10.

You can go to the projects browser view (where your projects are displayed as icons) and click on View/Sort By. You will be given options to sort by date, name, or duration. Perhaps if you use alphabetized prefixes they might group together by the designated prefix when sorting by name. You'd need to experiment.

There's also a search box at the top of the projects browser screen where you can search by title. For example, if you titled all of your vacation videos with the prefix Vacation - (followed by title name) then when you searched for Vacation in the search box all of your Vacation projects should show up. Same with Birthdays, Weddings, etc. The prefix word would be searched.

Also, since you can create as many libraries as you want, you can create them to hold projects in different categories, such as Birthday, Vacation, Weddings, Holidays, Europe Trip, etc. So if you wanted to view all of your Vacation projects, you would open the library titled Vacations.

-- Rich

Also, for safety, you don’t want to have the editable project be the only record of your project. If that’s your situation, you might consider exporting each project to the finder as a standalone movie. Then you can organize them by categories using folders and subfolders. As a further backup you can put the movies in the Photos app where the organization features are much more comprehensive than iMove. I think it is important to at least have them in the finder, rather than locked up in an app as the only storage place. Apps can become corrupted or become obsolete, and then you could lose your projects or have lots of trouble getting them out or rendering them. Some people who stored all their projects in iMovie 6, for example, found in later years after iMovie 6 was discontinued, and the new operating systems wouldn’t even run it, that they could no longer access or open their projects.

— Rich

— Rich

One more point: An exported movie can still be edited to a limited extent. You can drag it into a newly created iMovie project as one long clip. Then you can split the clip into segments, delete segments and add clips, trim segments, change titles that are not embedded, add or subtract music, add effects, etc. What you would not be able directly to change would be embedded edits like titles overlaid onto a clip or certain transitions, or certain effects imparted to a clip. Even most of those could be modified, however, by splitting and deleting, and trimming, and possibly adding back in some of your original unedited source material and re-editing just those clips. So, exporting your projects and storing and organizing them in finder folders and subfolders can have value. Particularly valuable is that you have an exported project with all of your edits preserved, and do not need to rely on re-exporting a project from a project that might be corrupted or no longer available due to corruption in the iMovie library or the app itself becoming obsolete in future years.

-- Rich

Unfortunately, there is no simple folder system. Sometimes one just has to make do with what the software gives you. The project browser with the search feature probably is the closest you can get in iMovie 10.

— Rich

Right. There are no folders and subfolders within an iMovie library to do organizing. Since editable projects cannot be stored anywhere but in an iMovie library you would need multiple libraries to store different categories of projects.

-- Rich

You are welcome.

-- Rich