Can't Drag and Drop in iMovie '11

Thank you for your help. Somehow or other everything spontaneously started to work again. I did quit iMovie but I did not have to shut down my computer. You are correct about the fact that I had just uploaded a bunch of new stuff because I had downloaded the Maverick system. Then I had to upgrade bunches of iWork stuff. That is when the problem started. Next time I will just quit whatever and maybe even shut down to see if everything is resolved without all the detail in your thread. Nan in NJ

I have the same problem with dragging and dropping video clips, and have had no luck solving this by deleting the com.apple.iMovie...plist as each time i restart imovie a new com.apple.iMovie...plist file is created?

Late comment, but I googled searched and found this page, WIll it do any damage if you permanently delete those .plist files or should we keep them? I tried this method and it seemed to work.

As long as everything is working fine, I would leave the files as they are; I would not advise permanent deletion of the files unless you have a backup (maybe through TimeMachine or even an external hard drive). Even as of now, 6 months after my initial response to the thread, these files are still in my Trash. I have not permanently deleted them...just moved them to the Trash. I haven't experienced any problems with iMovie since this solution.

I hope this helps.

Same issue. I cannot drag and drop clips from Events into Project. There does not appear to be a workaround. I note that this has been a problem since the date of the OP: 2011. It's now 2015. At this point it's safe to assume that we're dealing with an "undocumented feature". The program likely has an irresolvable issue. Since it's a freebie, I'm guessing that it's not much of a priority, and we're invited to pay for a more robust, 3rd party program.

Hi ewalrath,

Did you check out the response from TNethers on page 3 of this discussion? Those suggestions are what worked for me...also see my response on page 3 of the discussion, as I had to make a couple of minor tweaks from what was suggested by TNethers.

I hope the solution will work for you, as well. Good luck.

Try to add the file extension .jpg for your jpeg photos. It solved the issue for me.

I had both issues mentioned above in iMovie9:

a) I could not drag and drop videos from an event to a project.

b) The preview on the top right corner could play videos from the event, but not from the project (only audio was played).

In my case, removing the plist files did not seem to fix the problem. So I decided to remove some projects in order to clean up a bit, and then I realised that the problem is related to videos created through the Duplicate option of the File menu. I had duplicated a video, and for some reason iMovie would not allow me to move to trash one of the two identical videos (the option was not available on right click), but I am not sure if it was the original or the duplicate that I could not remove. It seems that these two videos were somehow linked to each other.

I managed to move to trash both the original and the duplicate through the iMovie interface. I am not sure how the option finally appeared. Perhaps after the duplicate was removed, I was also allowed to remove the original. After doing this, a sorting issue in the Event Library was also corrected.

Then I cleaned the plist files and everything works fine now.

In conclusion, I would suggest to follow these steps:

a) If you have recently duplicated any projects, move to trash both the duplicate and the original.

b) Quit iMovie.

c) Remove iMovie plist files as follows:

- Open Finder.

- Type CMD+SHIFT+G or select Go > Go to Folder.

- Type: ~/Library/Preferences/

- Press Go/Enter

- Delete any files named similar to: com.apple.iMovie...plist (they're alphabetically listed)

d) Reopen iMovie (you may try to restart, but for me it worked without restarting).

e) NEVER use the Duplicate option of the File menu again!

I had this issue too! What I do is that I go to my iPhotos Library and drag the videos I want to use onto my desktop. I can then easily import them to iMovie by clicking the big downward arrow button that says "Import Media",since it lets you import things from you desktop and not your actual iPhoto library for some reason. Hope this was helpful!