Cropping tools now grayed out in full-screen mode

Your screen shot in large screen is displaying only the photos and videos in your Photos app library (actually, only your albums). Those are referenced thumbnail displays. The original clips in the albums are not in the iMovie system until you import them into a project timeline or an Event. Until imported, they cannot be edited, and thus your editing tools are grayed out. In regular display mode, where the timeline is shown, the crop tool will be available for clips in the timeline and in the media browser.

Clips that are contained in Events have been imported into the iMovie library. Click on one of the events shown under the heading iMovie library in your screen shot. The clips that are then displayed will be the original clips that have been imported into the iMovie library. You will see that the crop tool now is available.

-- Rich

You won't see any projects in the library sidebar list. The list only depicts events that contain media. They are not projects. To get back to your project, go to the projects browser screen and click on it. I suspect that there will be no media in it.

I say that because I could not determine from your intitial screen shot whether you actually had imported any media into an event or project. The screen shot shows only Photos app thumbnails that are not in the iMovie library or in any project. There is no Project Media heading in the sidebar, which indicates to me that there is no media that has been imported into the project. So, open your initial blank project, or create a new one, and import some media into it that you can then edit.

-- Rich

Yes, your screen shot shows a project that has been selected from the project browser view.

So, I am not quite clear as to what is your concern. If you want to crop in the view you get when you press 1 on your keyboard, you need to put the photos into an event and then open the event to display the photos in the media browser. You can do the same thing in your regular project view, displayed in your last screen shot, without the necessity of pressing 1.

You can only crop photos that are actually in the iMovie system (library). They must be photos that are in the timeline or in events or in Project Media. You cannot crop media browser photos that are referencing Photos app photos that are not yet in the system. When you press 1 on your keyboard you are not displaying an iMovie project. There is no timeline and no Project Media item in the sidebar. With the Photos item selected, you are shown a view without a project timeline or project media, but only photos that are still referenced in the Photos app. Those photos cannot be cropped, so the crop tool is grayed out. To display any photos that could be cropped you would need to click on one of the events displayed under the iMovie library heading in the sidebar. Doing that would display photos in the media browser that are actually in the iMovie system (library) and thus could be cropped. When you select one of the photos displayed from and event, the crop tool would show as activated. As I said above, you could do the same thing in the normal project view without the necessity of pressing 1 on your keyboard.

-- Rich

I have explained the reason for your issue and the solution as best I can. At this point I have nothing more to add. You might want to try editing in the project timeline view like is usually done.

— Rich