Extract Source Videos From Library

I think what you might have done is to click on the Library icon, and that causes the iMovie app to open. The library files and sub-files that you see are listed in the iMovie sidebar. Is that correct? If so, you are correct that you can't Option/drag the files out from the sidebar items. You would need to select the clip or clips and do a File/Reveal in Finder. That will cause an Original Media folder to pop up with the selected file highlighted. Then you can hold down the Option key and drag the selected clip out to the desktop. Or, do Edit/Copy, Edit/Paste. Main thing is that you want to be copying, not moving, the files. Otherwise you risk corrupting your iMovie library.

Another way to access the movie source files is to do a Control-click/Show Package Contents on the iMovie library icon. That will reveal a pop-up folder window that displays by list all of the projects and events that the library contains. Each project is a folder. You cannot open the projects from the Show Package Contents view, but you can open the project folder. Inside will be a sub-folder called Original Media, that contains all of the media (clips) that are in the project. From the Original Media folder you can group select and Option/Drag all of the media into a desktop folder. You would need to do the above procedure for each project and event. Again, copy, not move, the movie files, to avoid corrupting the library.

If the above is not your situation, then post back with more details.

-- Rich

Hi,

Are these "library" files from iMovie 10, or an older version of iMovie, like iMovie 8 or 9? An iMovie 10 library folder icon should look like this:

. . . and have the extension .imovielibrary.

Is the above what you have?

Or does it look like one of these two folders:

Perhaps you can post a screen shot of the icon you are seeing and a view of its contents when opened. Are the contents movies or projects?

In any event, you should be able to select individually or as a batch and copy/drag individually or as a batch all of the movie files in the folders to a Finder folder on your desktop. Be sure to copy/drag (hold down the option key while dragging) rather than move them, so as to preserve the content in your original folders.

Another way is to select each movie, individually or as a batch, then then Edit/Paste them into a Finder folder on your desktop.

-- Rich

Can you do a Command-Shift-4 and take a screen shot of what you are seeing, and post it here?

When you say that you "open" the iMovie library, what procedure are you using to do that? Control-click/Show Package Contents? , or ordinary double click to open the iMovie app? Are you trying to drag out a movie from a sub-folder titled Original Media?

-- Rich

Great! Glad you were able to retrieve the source files.

-- Rich