Where is iMovie Trash?

There was a time in the past when iMovie kept a separate trash from the Macintosh System level trash. Now, when you delete and put stuff in the trash, iMovie moves it physically to the Trash icon you see in Macintosh Dock Bar (metal waste bin).

You can sometimes retrieve stuff out of that icon by double clicking it to see what's inside and dragging them back on to the desktop. However if you 'Empty' the trash, that's it. But the one case where this isn't true is if you have Time Machine turned on and can go back and retrieve it from the Time Machine Backup. Time Machine may show the items still in the trash before you emptied it.

They may not have been put in the trash. Sometimes when you delete a clip it is merely 'rejected' or is labeled rejected. In cases like this, it's only labeled and this happens when you highlight a clip and hit delete. Rejected clips are not deleted as such but given a red stripe across the top. To make the rejected clips visible in imovie, go down to the Event Browser and just below that area is a pull down list that is labeled Favorites and Unmarked. This is a sorting list that filters out different clips based on how they are labeled. If you click on that pull down list and choose Rejected Only, you might find your clips are in that list and have not been sent to the trash.

It may be that those video clips are from the iPhoto Videos icon under the Event Browser. What does the title bar above the clips say? If it's an iPhoto Video that will be at the beginning of the title followed by a - then whatever the event name was given to the video in iPhoto. I've run into this same exact situation recently with an old clip I had no intention of keeping. You are 100% correct in observing that iMovie disables the ability to delete the clips once they are rejected due to the fact they are actually iPhoto Video clips instead. So I looked up your question and found a discussion thread on the MacRumours website here: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=477746 It seems like the best course of action is to pull the iPhoto videos out of iPhoto altogether and then import them into iMovie so that you can manage them completely within the iMovie database itself. So I guess what we can conclude is that iPhoto Videos in iMovie are only 'readable', not 'writable' in the sense cannot delete or cut into them in any way.

I think you're on the right track as far as understanding where things are sitting on the hard drive. The iPhoto Videos only exist as a single copy inside of the iPhoto Library and folders. And iMovie 'points' to those videos sitting over in iPhoto. This is confusing I realize, and it may not be what you were intending to do, but it can be undone. It sounds like what you want to do is pull the vidoes completely out of iPhoto altogether (move them, not copy them) and then re-import them into iMovie. That way you are managing all the video clips within iMovie and not just pointing to them as they sit over in the iPhoto library.

To figure out where they are located currently in the iPhoto Library, right mouse click on a clip and choose "Reveal in Finder" that will open up a new window that contains the actual iPhoto Video clip you are clicking on right at that moment. Get a pencil and some paper and write down that location and folder name. Then you can drag that video clip(s) as necessary to the desktop. Organize them into folders. When everything is sitting on the desktop or some amount of it, import it into iMovie. To make sure iPhoto 'forgets' the old video clips, hold down the Apple key and launch iPhoto. It will ask you if you want to re-index, re-catalog all the stuff in iPhoto. That should force it to realize the videos are no longer in its possession and it should essentially erase them. If there's any left over artifacts from the videos you have moved it should be easy to delete the stuff that's missing from iPhoto, by clicking once and hitting the delete key.

Good luck sajam, Having someone watch what you are doing wil probably be helpful. And I think ultimately if iPhoto doesn't manage the video clips you will be happier in the long run. Another thing you can do to avoid any future problems is to turn off iPhoto's launching automatically and importing videos into it's library.

In iPhoto, go to the iPhoto menu at the top and choose Preferences. Under the 'General' Tab there is a setting titled: Connecting Camera Opens: (Drop down menu). This controls whether or not iPhoto launches and starts importing video/photos into it's Library. You can turn off this behavior by choosing "No Application". This means when the Mac sees the camera connected, it won't launch anything automatically. Which means you can then go to iMovie and do the import directly through it's import menu instead.

You're absolutely right, it wasn't always the case in the past the iPhoto would attempt to suck in all your video clips either. What happened I think around iLife '08 was they wanted people with still photo cameras that could also shoot video to be able to empty their cameras of EVERYTHING they might have on the camera whether or not it was video or still pictures. The side effect of that is iPhoto just assumes it supposed to manage everything on your behalf. But in fact in your case and in others you really want iMovie doing all the work.

I read up a little more on this and found out you can also drag the clips from the iPhoto Videos folder into other Events in the Event Library. So there's another way to do the moving of videos and it might be more straight forward than the complicated scheme I came up with previously. Here's what I'm thinking of:

1. Create a new empty event in the Event Library (File > New Event) Give it a name describing what clips will be going into it.

2. Go to the iPhoto Vidoes folder in the Event Library. Hold down the Apple key and start clicking once on each clip you want to copy to the new Event within iMovie. Once you have a good number (maybe 10-12) drag them to the new empty Event you created in the previous step.

This will NOT delete the originals, but merely copy them. Once they are safely copied into Event Folders using iMovie, you know they are safely there for you to use.

Downside to doing this is even though you have a copy, you haven't deleted the original videos sitting in iPhoto. So the second step in this process is to delete the videos in iPhoto once you have made copies of them. It's going to be tedious to do the book keeping to know what's been copied over and what hasn't. But you could also just do 'Select All' when you are in the iPhoto Videos folder (and that means it would select everyone in one shot) then drag all of that into the Events folder you created at the beginning. That would ensure everything got copied at least once into iMovie and that you still have the duplicate or back up vidoes sitting in iPhoto which can be deleted at a later time. What you choose depends on which is easier for you to manage. I think Select All is probably easier, but you might want to split things into new events as you copy them from the iPhoto Videos folder in the Event Library.

And again, do what you think is best I just wanted to include this as a smaller number of steps alternative to my original advice. Good Luck and may the Geniuses be with you.

I had already put all the videos into a separate album in iphoto, but I lost you after that.

That's fine, getting them into one spot is a good first step. The second step is to go back to iMovie into the Events Library and copy those videos into a new Event folder. Then they are fully under control of iMovie, you can reject/delete as needed.

I guess I also need to figure out if I take new videos with a regular camera, is there a way to get them to go directly into imovie and not into iphoto?

You will need to do it yourself, by using iMovie to import the video clips. But first make sure iPhoto's auto-importing has been disabled. That's the setting in the iPhoto preferences, General settings: Connecting Camera Opens: No Application. That turns off iPhoto and it will not launch the program the next time you connect your camera. Once that's disabled iPhoto wont' leap into action and suck everything off of the camera before you can do anything else with it.

Also in imovie, I created Events to organize the clips that were originally imported. But is there a way to change the iphoto video titles on the right side of the screen?

If the videos are still in the iPhoto Videos folder in the Event Library, they cannot be changed. You would need to drag them from the iPhotos Video folder into the Event folder you created. Then the Event folder can be renamed to match whatever you want to type in. In the Event Library double-click on the Event name to select it. Type a new name and press Return. That will rename the Event as it appears in the Event Browser, what you call the right side of the screen.

I know this is old, but... Finder > iMovie Library > right click the 'iMovie Library' application and select 'Show Package Contents > Contents > Trash > delete the required from this folder.