Time Machine backup size has doubled since updating to iMovie 10.0

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Time Machine backup size has doubled since updating to iMovie 10.0

So since installing Mavericks and running iMovie 10.0, the size of my Time Machine backup has increased enormously.

It seems clear that Time Machine is backing up my iMovie content twice, that is seeing the old iMovie Events and iMovie Projects folders (which are still present in my Movies folder), and the new iMovie Library package, as separate things even though they cannot be separate as they are not taking up any more space on the disk.

The backup is also taking much longer than usual, though I'm not so worried about that.

Any ideas about the cause or how to fix this?

I'm running Mavericks on a late 2008 MacBook 2.4 GHz Unibody with 8GB RAM and 250GB SSD, backing up to Time Capsule with 2TB hard drive

It's a Mac!

Posted on Oct 29, 2013 5:15 PM

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Answer 1

Oct 29, 2013 5:52 PM in response to John Falla

What I have found so far is that when upgrading to iMovie 10 there is a conversion/duplication process that takes place in order to make your iMovie 9 events compatible with iMovie 10.

They should be nearly identical in size. You can confirm this by right clicking the "iMovie Events" folder (iMovie 9) and the "iMovie Library" package (iMovie 10) and selecting "Get Info" and their respective sizes should be nearly identical. The reason for this is unclear other than you retain the ability to run iMovie 9 which will continue to access the "iMovie Events" folder. iMovie 10 will access the newly created/duplicated "iMovie Library" package. Any new video you add using iMovie 10 will also be stored in the new "iMovie Library".

If you want to see the contents of the "iMovie Library" then right click and select "Show Package Contents". You should see all the folders (events) you created originally in iMovie 9.

At some point I presume you have the option to delete the "iMovie Events" folder if iMovie 9 will no longer be utilized or, better yet, back it up on a separate drive if like me you don't like deleting files until you're absolutely sure you don't need them. Otherwise, from what I have found, you are in fact backing up two sets of files.

For now I had to exclude the "iMovie Events" folder from my Time Machine backup because, like you, my back up nearly doubled in size (videos take up a lot of space) otherwise I got an error message from Time Machine indicating that my external drive did not have enough space for the backup file.

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Answer 2

John Falla Author

Level 1

4 points

Oct 30, 2013 1:34 PM in response to SiriusStargazer

Thanks for that, I'm starting to understand what's going on. I thought the apparent duplication was a bug but I see it's actually a "feature".

All you say is right, the one thing I've also realised is that iMovie is not really duplicating iMovie events when it upgrades the library.

Apple's done something strange here: it looks to the Finder as if the iMovie event and the iMovie Libary are separate duplicates, and it looks this way to Time Machine too, which is what confused me, but at least in my case I've still got nearly as much spare space on my main drive and on an external drive as I did before upgrading.

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Answer 3

Oct 30, 2013 1:46 PM in response to John Falla

This may help too with deleting the "iMovie Events" folders.

iMovie (2013): Removing old libraries after updating

When you first open iMovie (version 10.0 or later), you’re asked to update your existing iMovie projects and events. After updating, copies of the original “iMovie Projects” and “iMovie Events” folders are left in place and will continue to work with the previous version of iMovie.

You can delete these folders if you no longer want to work with them in the previous version of iMovie.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5917

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