How to combine 2 projects in iMovie '11?

Thanks, that made it very clear - nothing like a picture to help! And I realized now that I misunderstood what you were using it for. Of course you were answering the question of how to combine projects, and I expect to be doing that.

I had mistakenly imagined this was a way to lengthen the duration of the whole project, add time to the maximum length it could be, so that iMovie would not refuse to lengthen slides or transitions, or change lots of things to a shorter duration. That's the worst problem I am having. But found I had iMovie 10 on my Mac and tried that - it seems to be not as stubborn and interferes less with all my elements when I change the duration of one. Just changes one or two at most. So am using that version. And will need to combine some projects this week, so thank you for the workaround for that!

You can drag that slider, or you can simply use the keyboard shortcut of "⌘+" and "⌘-" to zoom in and out. iMovie will not be able to show an entire project at once –even when fully zoomed out– if that project is over a certain length. The process I described in my original comment is more of a tedious work around than an elegant solution, and Apple should really include this as a feature.

John,

I know its been some time since you posted this but I too was having this issue and came upon your response/solution...and I'm so happy I did!

I am one who doesn't give up easily and I know I would have been sitting here for hours until I figured the problem out.

Exporting the project to something as simple as my desktop, and then importing it to the second project I wanted to merge it, with worked like a charm!

THANK YOU!! 🙂

"Make the timeline span as much footage as possible by moving the dial next to "Settings" all the way to the left."

This sounds like it might be the answer I am looking for. Can you explain where this is in iMovie 11 for Mac? Or is it not for the Mac version? I am trying to control the duration of many jpg's and transitions between them.

Yeah, my workaround is just simply copy and pasting the entire contents of the timeline into a separate project. It’s far better than the workaround recommended by John, but it’s still not great. I could have described it in a more simple way to avoid misleading you into thinking I had found a good workaround.

If Apple is listening out there, this is a 'Hack' not a solution. A bad hack at that. There should be a feature to combine projects, or copy contents of an entire project with audio, and paste it into another project.

Would this not result in loss of quality on the second section? Basically you're exporting one project, putting that into another project but then eventually you'll export the combined projects (one project, one MOV). I would think exporting something a second time would result in loss of quality. Like making a photocopy of a photocopy.

Go to the Project you would like to combine. Make the timeline span as much footage as possible by moving the dial next to "Settings" all the way to the left. Highlight all clips you want. Press ⌘ + C to copy. This will take awhile, depending on your project's size. When the copying is complete, go to the destination project and place your Cursor where you want to add the clips and press ⌘ + V to paste. This will also take awhile, depending on the amount you copied.

It's at the bottom of the timeline on the right edge next to the viewer.

Thank you!