I somehow deleted my imovie soundtrack - how do I restore it?

If it is still in iMovie's trash, drag it back from there.

What version of iMovie are you using?

Sorry, I don't use that version. Some one will hopefully come and give further information. 🙂

kadargo65 wrote:

I'm creating an imovie and I somehow deleted the introduction soundtrack for the 'sports theme.' How do I restore it?

The actual Sports Theme audio file is located in iMovie's package contents folder.

In Finder (set to column view), in the Applications folder you will see the iMovie.app file. Right-click (or Control-click) on iMovie.app, then from the pop-up menu select Show Package Contents. Click on the Contents folder, then the Resources folder. In the Resources folder you will find a number of files named SoundTrack followed by a Theme name. The Sports one is named SoundTrack-Sports.m4a (signifying an audio file).

Copy the .m4a file and paste it to the Desktop, or preferably to a location from where you are unlikely to move it. The best action is to save it to the Desktop, then import it to your iTunes Library. You can now drag the audio file into the appropriate position in the project timeline in iMovie (either from your saved location or from the Music Browser in iMovie).

Note that it is quite likely that you haven't actually deleted the soundtrack. If you double-click on the video clip the Inspector will open. In the Inspector's Audio tab you will see a slider for adjusting audio levels. Perhaps you have inadvertently lowered the volume level to zero. You may have also done this in the timeline by dragging the volume level downwards to its minimum position.

Another point. In iMovie there is an option to Detach Audio. You can access this by right-clicking on a video clip in the timeline, then selecting Detach Audio from the pop-up menu. This will place a separate audio track beneath the video clip and will lower the volume on the video clip to zero. If the separate audio track (the Detached Audio) is subsequently deleted, it's easy to reinstate the volume in the original video clip. You can do this by using the Inspector (as advised above), or simply clicking on the volume line in the video clip and dragging it upwards to the desired level. So, detaching audio doesn't actually delete the audio - it's still intact in the video clip but simply muted.

John

PS Be careful when accessing the package contents folder. Don't remove or otherwise disturb items in that hidden folder. It's safe to copy items though, as I discussed above.

Message was edited by: John Cogdell - added PS re package contents folder.

Hi kadargo65,

Glad it helped! Just a quick question though. For future reference, and for the benefit of others here, what worked for you? Did you recover the Sports Theme audio from package contents, or was it simply a matter of adjusting the volume level in the original audio track in the video clip?

John