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imovie library

Hello,


My hard drive is 250gb (Mac Book Air) and my iMovie library takes up 153 GB of that space, and now I don't have enough space left to upgrade my OS.


I went into iMovie and deleted almost all the events and clips I could find (sent them to the trash) and then emptied my trash bin.


My trash bin is showing as empty, there are no clips left (apart from 3 small ones) in my iMovie library and yet the library is still taking up 153 gb of space and I still can't upgrade my OS?


What do I do now?

MacBook Air Apple Silicon

Posted on Jan 5, 2023 3:34 AM

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Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Jan 5, 2023 8:29 AM

Hi,


The best solution is to purchase an external drive, format it Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or APFS, and move your iMovie library to the external drive. In your case, that will free up 153 GB of free space on your internal drive.


For the most part, deleting clips from the iMovie app will not remove the clips from the iMovie library. You would need to delete an entire event (the event itself, not just the clips within it) to remove media from the iMovie library. The same with deleting projects. After deleting the project you then need to go to the event that bears the project's name and delete the event in order to remove the media from the library. Another way would be to select a clip and do a File/Reveal in Finder, that will cause a folder entitled Original Media to pop up. Clips deleted from the Original Media folder would be permanently removed from the Finder and the iMovie system.


However, it is risky to delete anything from the iMovie library. By doing so you would be deleting the clip from all projects that might be referring to it, thus disabling the project. Also, unless you have your original source media also stored somewhere other than the library, you would be permanently deleting your source material.


One thing you can do to free up some sapce is to open iMovie and go to iMovie/Preferences and delete the render files from the preferences box.



You may have other, unwanted, non-iMovie files that you can delete from your Mac as well.


-- Rich





1 reply
Question marked as Best reply

Jan 5, 2023 8:29 AM in response to Redmanwrites

Hi,


The best solution is to purchase an external drive, format it Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or APFS, and move your iMovie library to the external drive. In your case, that will free up 153 GB of free space on your internal drive.


For the most part, deleting clips from the iMovie app will not remove the clips from the iMovie library. You would need to delete an entire event (the event itself, not just the clips within it) to remove media from the iMovie library. The same with deleting projects. After deleting the project you then need to go to the event that bears the project's name and delete the event in order to remove the media from the library. Another way would be to select a clip and do a File/Reveal in Finder, that will cause a folder entitled Original Media to pop up. Clips deleted from the Original Media folder would be permanently removed from the Finder and the iMovie system.


However, it is risky to delete anything from the iMovie library. By doing so you would be deleting the clip from all projects that might be referring to it, thus disabling the project. Also, unless you have your original source media also stored somewhere other than the library, you would be permanently deleting your source material.


One thing you can do to free up some sapce is to open iMovie and go to iMovie/Preferences and delete the render files from the preferences box.



You may have other, unwanted, non-iMovie files that you can delete from your Mac as well.


-- Rich





imovie library

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