How to copy an iMovie from one MacBook Pro to another MacBook Pro

Can I use airdrop to move an iMovie from one Mac to another. What other options do I have?


MacBook Pro (M2, 2022)

Posted on Apr 28, 2024 8:13 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Apr 29, 2024 7:59 AM

Are you referring to copying a movie that has been exported from iMovie, or are you referring to copying the iMovie project and/or the library itself?


Air Drop would work fine to send a copy of an exported movie. 


The iMovie project itself cannot exist outside of an iMovie library.  So you would need to do an Edit/Copy of the library icon itself and then Edit/Paste the library into an external drive as follows:  To transfer the library from one Mac to another, Edit/Copy the library and then Edit/Paste it to an external drive that is formatted either Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or APFS.   Then physically plug in the external drive to your destination computer. You can then Edit/Copy, Edit/Paste, the library from the external drive to your destination computer.  After confirming that the transferred library is working, you can delete the copy from the external transfer drive if you wish.  The destination Mac must be running the same version of iMovie that was used to create the movie.

 

I am not aware of any other way, but if anyone on the forum knows of one, hopefully they will chime in here.


 -- Rich 


 

2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Apr 29, 2024 7:59 AM in response to gmpizzuto

Are you referring to copying a movie that has been exported from iMovie, or are you referring to copying the iMovie project and/or the library itself?


Air Drop would work fine to send a copy of an exported movie. 


The iMovie project itself cannot exist outside of an iMovie library.  So you would need to do an Edit/Copy of the library icon itself and then Edit/Paste the library into an external drive as follows:  To transfer the library from one Mac to another, Edit/Copy the library and then Edit/Paste it to an external drive that is formatted either Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or APFS.   Then physically plug in the external drive to your destination computer. You can then Edit/Copy, Edit/Paste, the library from the external drive to your destination computer.  After confirming that the transferred library is working, you can delete the copy from the external transfer drive if you wish.  The destination Mac must be running the same version of iMovie that was used to create the movie.

 

I am not aware of any other way, but if anyone on the forum knows of one, hopefully they will chime in here.


 -- Rich 


 

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How to copy an iMovie from one MacBook Pro to another MacBook Pro

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