iMovie project storage

@love_photography - this is my current workaround, that's made my iMovie Library about 95% lighter and saved around 60GB of Mac HD space. It also means the app works with a lot more zing and fewer glitches.

1. Use "Find" to locate "iMovie Library.imovielibrary". It's in your Mac's Movies folder if you want to go there manually.
2. Right click to "Show Package Contents".
3. You'll now see every iMovie project you've ever done, divided into folders.
4. The ones that can be put into deep storage can be copied onto an external HD. Copy the entire folder(s) and don't touch or rename anything. Make sure you don't delete "CurrentVersion.imovieevent" which is in every folder. This is required for iMovie to load your project.
5. If you need to unfreeze any project to work on it again, simply shift the folder from your external HD back to iMovie Library.imovielibrary on your Mac. When you start up iMovie, the project will load, just as it did previously.

If one’s library gets too large, and performance suffers, move it to an external drive and create a new unpopulated library on the internal (or external) drive to do your current projects. (To create a new library, open iMovie while holding down the Option key). If you need to access an old project, reopen your old library, or transfer the old project to your new library.

The above is my preference, but of course you are entitled to yours. I just prefer not to separate the project from the library where it is intended to be archived. Thanks, by the way, for explaining that the project disappears from the project browser when moved out of the library Show Package Contents.

— Rich

If you're very sure you aren't going to be using them again, then shift the entire iMovie library onto an external hard drive. There are several videos on YouTube explaining how to do this. Just search under "iMovie library to external hard drive" on YouTube. (In theory you can still edit your projects directly off the external hard drive, but I prefer to have them physically on my Mac when doing that.)

I am facing exactly the same problem.

It's a fact that iMovie gets very goofy the larger the iMovie library gets, and becomes very painful to use. This is a known issue. I will try at some stage to find a solution that archives all my "Done" projects to an external hard drive, but keeps active ones on my Mac.

PS: Deleting "Projects" from the main iMovie window doesn't save space.

Create a new library and start using that one. You can create as many libraries as you want. I have several of them. Every year I create a new one and name them by year.

— Rich

Everything works flawlessly. There's no reason why it shouldn't. And there is no project icon in the projects browser once the folder has been archived - iMovie no longer displays it, unless and until the folder is restored. Only active projects are shown.

The OP's specific issue, shared by many, many other users of iMovie, is that performance suffers when the library gets bloated. And it eats huge amounts of disk space.

I didn't quite grasp how your comment...........

"Create a new library and start using that one. You can create as many libraries as you want. I have several of them. Every year I create a new one and name them by year."

......actually helps his/her issue, though if explained step by step it might aid the OP.

The 3rd option here might help:

Work with multiple libraries in iMovie on Mac – Apple Support (UK)

This might achieve the same result of transferring the bloat to an external HD in order to help iMovie become less sluggish.

Does the library continue to function correctly after removing the projects? Have you dealt with the situation where the media that goes with the project is also being referred to by a project left behind? What happens when you click on a project icon in the projects browser?

I believe it is safer to simply create a new library and leave the Show Package Contents projects alone. Pulling apart the architecture of the iMovie library has the potential to lead to trouble.

— Rich