Apple Event: May 7th at 7 am PT

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

How to tell which projects use a given event?

Often I have multiple projects accessing the same event. Is there some way I can tell which projects are using any given event? (NOTE: Each of the events in question consists of a single clip. This is because these are Super 8 transfers, and each clip is roughly an hour long, and is its own event.)


Motivation: For some reason, I have three identical events, each consisting of a single clip. (Don't ask why -- I don't remember anyhow.) When I try to delete any of them I am warned that the selected clip (which composes the entire event) is being used in a project. Now, I'd like to see which projects are using which of these three clips/events. This will help me clean up and organize things.


To state it differently


event 1 has 1 clip

event 2 has 1 clip

event 3 has 1 clip


All three clips are identical: same footage, same size (no. of bytes), same created and modified dates.


Is there some way to tell which projects are using which event, without going through each project one by one?


Thanks! AEF

iMovie '11, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Apr 22, 2013 2:21 PM

Reply
1 reply

Apr 22, 2013 7:20 PM in response to betaneptune

Well, I slogged through my projects and found one that accessed one of the duplicate events. A very unimportant project, so I deleted it and the event it referenced. The other event is needed by at least one project -- an important one, no less -- and I might just delete the unused portion of the event.


I'm still welcome to any ideas to do this more easily should I need it again. One idea I had was to open Terminal and grep all the files called Project for iMovie. Didn't work. These are binary XML files, and even the strings command is of no use: it somehow misses the desired string! TextWrangler has no problem opening it as a readable, and perhaps editable, file. (I don't know what happens if you edit it and save it; that is, if the saved file is still usable and whether it's binary or not. OK, I just checked. It gets save as a binary file, and I'm guessing it would still be useful.) Note that TextEdit is of no help at all.


Thanks to those who looked into the issue. --AEF

How to tell which projects use a given event?

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple ID.