Imported video file not showing up

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Level 1

5 points

Imported video file not showing up

Hey guys,

I recently upgraded to a new MacBook Air and began with a clean install. Today I was trying to import a video file in iMovie. It was an HD quality movie, just under 2 hours long, an m4v file, about 2,5 GB. I started importing it, and it took forever (like, 6 hours or something). When it was finally done, there was nothing to see in iMovie. I had made a new event to which it should've been added but it just wasn't there. I went to the Finder to check the 'Movie' folder because that's where the files are copied to, and it was empty as well.

However, here's the strange part. While importing, I noticed that the free space on my Macintosh HD started to drop. After the failed importing, 15 GB of space was gone, but oddly enough I couldn't find a file of that size anywhere.

So, what do I do? My hard drive space is precious to me because I have to work with a relatively small SSD and suddenly, 15 GB is gone. I can't recover the 15 GB because I can't find the file that should've been there after importing in iMovie.

Thanks for taking the time to read and help!

Mitch

MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2012), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Dec 29, 2012 9:03 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

AppleMan1958

Level 7

27,492 points

Dec 29, 2012 9:43 AM in response to Da Mouse

It may be in a temporary file. I would suggest totally shutting down your MBA and then restarting. See if that gets it back.

For a 2.5 GB file in HD, you might need up to 25GB of space available. Also make sure the file is not copy protected.

For why the files get so big, see this tip. The tip is for AVCHD, but h.264 like yours is very similar.

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3941

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Answer 2

Da Mouse Author

Level 1

5 points

Dec 29, 2012 1:53 PM in response to AppleMan1958

Thanks for your fast response! I tried restarting my Mac but it seems like it wasn't something temporary. It's still 15 GB less than what I had before. Would've made sense though.

I had done some research about how big the files could be, so I knew that I would need a lot of disk space. I did think however, that I would be able to delete it and recover the space. It's weird because I had a MBP before this one and this never happened in iMovie on that computer.

Anything else that comes to mind?

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Answer 3

Dec 29, 2012 3:07 PM in response to Da Mouse

Open your trash and it may be in there. If so, empty your trash.

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Answer 4

Da Mouse Author

Level 1

5 points

Dec 29, 2012 10:59 PM in response to AppleMan1958

Already tried that as well. Nothing was in there.

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Answer 5

Dec 30, 2012 5:00 AM in response to Da Mouse

Da Mouse wrote:

… I can't recover the 15 GB because I can't find the file …

while in Finder, hit cmd-F

for 'criteria' select

File Size larger than 14GB

and

Visibility Both

.... this should find that ghost 😉

------------

do you try to import an iTunes purchased video?

that is a NoGo .....

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Answer 6

Da Mouse Author

Level 1

5 points

Dec 30, 2012 5:18 AM in response to Karsten Schlüter

Finder didn't find anything that large, and I even tried searching for files larger than 2 GB (maybe it was split up or something), but that didn't give me any results either.

It's not a protected movie file by the way so that can't be the problem.

Earlier, I also tried removing iMovie (hoping that maybe some hidden files would be moved to the trash with it) but it didn't give me my disk space back.

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