iMovie - Best Way to Archive & BackUp Projects

To move a project to an external disk, it must be done within iMovie. Click VIEW/EVENTS BY DISK. You should see all your properly formatted disks in the Project Library and in the Event Library along the left side of iMovie.

Note: Disks must be formatted as Mac OS Extended (journaled) for Imovie to see them.

Now, you should see your projects listed under your internal drive in the iMovie Project Library. To move to an external disk. hold don the Command key while dragging the small project icon to the small icon for the external drive.

A similar process works for moving Event files (which are the large files). Hold down the Command Key as you drag the small icon for the Event to the small icon for the external drive in the Event Library List in iMovie.

Another really good way to do this is to use the File/Consolidate Media command. First you move the Project to the external drive, just as I mentioned above. Then, select the project in the Project Library List, and click FILE/CONSOLIDATE MEDIA. iMovie will offer to move or copy Event Files. It will also offer to place a copy of any photos, music files, etc. on the external disk (although it will not move the originals out of iPhoto or iTunes). This has the advantage of making your archive on the external drive self contained. You can plug this external drive into any Mac running iMovie 11 and edit your project.