My macbook suddenly shut down, and when rebooted, imovie project was completely gone. No record of it at all. Have been working on it for days, and it has always been there. Any way to restore it? Thanks.
MacBook Air, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)
Which version of imovie are you using?
Geoff.
The latest version. I even went back to my time machine backup from yesterday and it doesn't appear there either even though I started it a few weeks ago. Bizarre.
Do you see the library and event it was in?
We have MacBook Pro. It was working fine w/ latest version. Then we activated the parental controls and now, I'm losing the project....it's repeatable.....no matter what I do. I have the two I've done before we activated them, no trouble.
For mine, you can see the "library" title I created on the left column. But when you go to the bottom right view the "event" with the thumbnail I create disappears after I shut iMovie down.
When I now go into imovie, there are 4 "Projects" that appear, but it says "1 of 5" in the project list. Also, under the New Event that was created when I started the project, the photos and video I placed into the project appear, but no other evidence of the project.
Also weird is that although I "shared" the project with iTunes (in m4v format), it doesn't appear in the Finder folder for iTunes shared projects (the other 4 projects do appear). However, when I go into iTunes, the m4v file IS there, and when I open it, it plays. While the video is open, I clicked "locate in finder" and it takes me to a folder in my user file called "New Event" within the "iMovie Library" folder. However, when I seek to access that file in Finder separately (not thru iTunes), nothing appears within the "iMovie Library" icon (though it does indicate that the library is 33GB in size). Likewise, in my TimeMachine backup, the "iMovie Library" icon is disabled and doesn't allow me to select it for either determining what's in it, or for restoration. There is also no sign of my lost project in the TimeMachine folders containing either iMovie Projects or files shared with iTunes.
Bizarre. Maybe too complicated for anyone to bother with, but any help/past experience with this is greatly appreciated. Thanks.
To look inside your imovie 10 library you have to right/control click on it and select "Show Package Contents". Don't move or chance anything there. There will be folders for each event. Any shared projects will be inside cryptically named folders inside a folder called "Shared items" so you will find your shared project video deep in the New Event folder.
Unfortunately projects themselves are encoded inside the .imovieevent files so they are not vsible. I think it must have got corrupted when your machine shut down abnormally.
If you can replace your <library name>. imovielibrary file(package) with one from your time machine backup from before the abnormal shutdown, you should find your project works again. To avoid possible further loss I suggest you first make a backup copy of the current version somewhere so you can replace it should the time machine copy be worse than the current one. Close imovie before replacing the library.
Geoff.
I have the same problem, namely my only project disappeared after I finalized it. It contained still images, videos (both .avi and .mov), and voiceovers, and was about 44 minutes in length. I have iMovie 9.0.9. Before finalizing, I had shown it several times using both Apple TV and Chromecast. I was very happy with it, but wanted to make a DVD. I do not have iDVD, and according to Apple and the community, I cannot get it, so I thought I could finalize it and drag the file to a flash drive and take it to an older Mac with iDVD to burn a DVD. After finalizing and dragging it, it is now gone! And it is very incomplete on the flash drive.
Using your suggestions above, I found a folder called "proxies". In it were voiceover files that I could open right there using quicktime. It also had many cryptically named folders with names ending in Eavi and Emov. I assumed they were the movie clips I had used in my project. Inside each of these were different numbers of data files. I could not open those folders or files, but after trying, I could not get back to the "proxies" list.
In preparing this memo, I tried to reproduce my "journey" through the guts of my Mac, and now I cannot find the "shared items folder" in the "new event" folder!
I probably should have been more careful, and instead of dragging the project, should have tried to copy it to the flash drive. Why it is incomplete, I do not know, unless I inadvertantly disrupted the transfer.
I sure would like to recover this project. Any advice would be appreciated.
Nancy,
My suggestions were for nfpratt who is using iMovie 10 and you are using iMovie 9. The way they store media is totally different. Its quie a long time since I used iMovie 9 and also I can't really follow clearly what you have done. If you finalized your movie you should have copies of the renedered movie somewhere in your iMovie folders - but I don't remember exactly where they should be. If this is what you have on your flash drive I don't understand why it is not complete. I don't think I can really help except to advise keeping backups of your projects and events folders. You can of course reimport what you have on your flash drive into a new project and go on from there.
Geoff.
Lost iMovie project
