QuickTime won't save ("This operation could not be completed")

*** SOLUTION FOUND ***

On quicktime there is a stupid little share button like this:

i clicked it and selected mail (don't worry if you don't have it setup, i don't think it matters)

this took a while but it opened mail and opened a new mail window with the video as an attachment

I simply right clicked on the image of the attachment, and saved attachment!!!!! (or i could have control-clicked)

SAVED NO PROBLEM

opened it back up in quicktime and everything is fine!!!

YOUR WELCOME INTERNETS :-)

Same problem trying to save short clips after trimming. Some only 20 secs long.

Tried the above suggestion from super-mysee but don't even get the option to share via email (see screen shot below) When I click 'more' I just get a system preferences window with outlook mail and a greyed out check box (which is checked) and no option to add apple mail app.

This is also an intermittent problem for me and I can't figure out why it sometimes does this.

I have experimented around to see how I can save it anyway. Sometimes creating a duplicate will help other time choosing the split track option and then closing the file will work. I've even tried doing a hard turn off (pressing the power button until you force reboot) [Careful!!! May loose everything with this even crash tour HDD] but that should be the very last resort. This is the only post I could find about this issue.

Side Note:

I've upgraded from OS X 10.8 to 10.9 and eventually to 10.10. I got the feeling that somewhere along the way this corrupted something in my local user account. It could be that this is one of the symptoms of that. I just bought a 1TB SSD to upgrade my system and will do a clean install on that. Hopefully this will resolve my problem.

Johnvb wrote:

They're usually longer recordkings. between 15m and 1h30. I'm usually capturing from safari, websites can include flash or video including audio I use soundflower to capture system sounds.

Troubleshooting this is going to be a challenge. You have a fair number of variables to consider. I know from personal experience that QuickTime X in Mavericks would hang quite often when my students were recording tutorials in Logic Pro and using Soundflower-2 channel to grab the audio output of Logic. But they were not having the issues at the point of saving or exporting but during the capture. In your case, you seem to be able to get through the recording stage but can't save or export. Then you have the added complexity of recording Flash embeds which may or may not be a contributing factor.

Do you know if you have the latest version of Soundflower installed (1.6.6b)? Have you considered upgrading to Yosemite and QuickTime 10.4. I say this only because I've been conducting some testing with QuickTime X (10.4) screen recording and using Soundflower to capture sound output. So far I have not been able to produce an error on saving or exporting.

Wish I could be more helpful.

I have been having the same problem periodically in Quicktime. I have been able to take up to 5 hour long recordings and they save just fine, as long as you have the space for it. But what I have noticed is that I only have this problem, "The Operation Could Not Be Completed" when saving, if I start a new screen recording before saving the first one. It is the first one that I am then unable to save.

I have had some luck that if I trim the first recording I am sometimes able to save it. But this time I did not have enough extra recording to trim much and so it still wouldn't save, which is when I found this thread.

I resorted to making a new screen recording of my recording (silly I know, and it probably reduced my resolution and sound quality). Since the recording that would not save still plays in Quicktime, I was able to make a recording of my recording and that saved just fine. So I was at least able to keep the content, which for me is much more important than the quality.

I realize this tread started a while ago, but I hope it may help anyone else struggling with the same issues.

I have the same issue. I opened a .mov file from my Nikon camera in quicktime 10.1, did a simple Trim, and tried to export. No matter what format or file name I gave to the export I received the same "This operation could not be completed" error. HELP!!! Is Quicktime REALLY this dysfunctional that it can not perform such a simple task? Am I missing something so obvious that I can not see it? Thanks!

Quicktime Player 7 IS BETTER than Quicktime Player 10! Go figure... I will never understand the logic in the Apple World at how something so simple can go unnoticed for SO LONG!!! I saw threads about this back from 2013! and people receiving the "The operation could not be completed An unknown error occurred (-12738)" error. Sad Apple, very sad!

Similar situation here, only in my case it is adding splits that disables the Save option in the File menu. If I try to trick it by closing the window and setting a name and location for the file when prompted, Quicktime goes through the progress bar as if it was saving, and in the end tells me that "this operation could not be completed". This only happens when adding splits - no problem with trimming.

Has anyone had any success figuring this out? I've tried removing plist files from the library in an attempt to "reset" Quicktime, but it didn't work. Perhaps somehow re-installing Quicktime X from scratch would help? Though this seems very difficult to do from what I could gather on forums.

I'm running OSX 10.9.5 on a Macbook Pro 13-inch mid-2012, 2.9 GHz Intel Core i7. Quicktime version is 10.3.

I have this issue still (QT 10.3 (727.4), and solved it using MPEG Streamclip (Shareware from Squared 5). Open an MPEG Streamclip window, left-click-and-hold on the little video icon in the upper window bar of the screen recording. (In the above example, it's the miniature QT file icon to the left of the 'Vital signs...' title). Wait for the icon to darken, drag it into the MPEG streamclip window, and release the mouse button. The little wheel should start spinning on the upper right of the MPEG sc window, and the window's title should say Screen Recording. If it doesn't you just drag the little icon again; I've often had to do that twice, but never more. Now, just save (or edit and save) your recording. If you just do cmd-s or Save... in the File menu, you get a recording that you can name, you can choose between .mov, .mp4, avi and DVI formats, but you will get a recording that (IMO) is slightly depixelated and so a little less sharp than the corresponding QT screen recording window (it is a JPEG series, after all). A better option is to File -> Export... and you can upgrade the parameters to get a sharper recording. I routinely set the slider at about 68%, which gives me a slightly larger saved movie file than the corresponding QT one would do, but you can experiment. If you go the Export option, be aware that as you up the quality (originally set at 50%) it takes longer on a curvilinear scale. i.e.: saving at 75 percent is not just 25% longer than the default 50%, but nearly THREE times as long. As you opt for more detail, you get into really big file sizes as well.

I'm gonna try the Mail trick, and the truncation trick, and I'm gonna fish around for my original Snow Leopard install disk, and dig out the QT 7 app.

Hope this helps at least some one. :-)

s99p

Just been trimming videos successfully in quicktime. Done three then won't save anymore.

Tried adding to photos but nothing happened. Tried sharing with youtube, nothing happened don't even have the mail option for some reason. Have checked in 'more' but mail not there. Have tried exporting to youtube before trimming and the log in window opened. After trimming nothing happens.

Thanks for all the above help and suggestions but none of this should be necessary, as I am sure you are all aware. It is disappointing that Apple will not fix this issue.

I eventually solved the problem by using iMovie to trim the video, then handbrake to convert the result from .mov to .mp4 (I needed the smaller file size as it was for embedding in a powerpoint) but I'm annoyed that the simplicity of trimming video in quicktime, which worked for the first 3 clips, suddenly becomes unavailable and no one (not a complaint at you guys but at Apple) knows why or how to fix it.

Thanks for all your help. Keep up the good work and maybe we can influence the Apple giant????

Not sure if anyone noticed, but in the Quicktime 10.4 release it seems this was resolved. And the send via email solution also works but no need now. Just "save". 😀 If anyone has a contrary experience, please share. But I just tried a couple of times with different length clips and it saved just fine after trimming the clip.

I get the same share options, with Mail unable to be selected. I saved a copy of MPEG Streamclip long ago and tried it and it worked.

What puzzles me is that this version of QT {10.4 (894.12)} was trimming (LOVE the greater frame control) and saving fine until a few days ago. Then, coming here and learning that may have had this problem since 2013 or earlier, and Apple still has no official response or solution, astounds me. QuickTime always seemed to me to be one of the hallmarks of OS X and they've been treating it like the proverbial red-headed stepchild.

I FOUND A SOLUTION BASED FROM s99p POST!

I downloaded MPEG Streamclip and followed the instructions above but did not work for me. However, I tried this trick using iMovie and it worked! Apparently, my Quicktime screen recording was corrupted in the middle and only recorded audio but need the recording nevertheless. Would never use Quicktime again for screen recording.

This issue is still actual.

Seems like it happens when you are recording a long video (more than a couple of mins) and use microphone. At least I had it with a video that was being screened along with an active Skype call. The duration was 1h 40m.

It seems that somewhere at the 7th min some error occurred (a assume) and it was not possible to neither save nor export the video. It was not possible to share it using Mail/Notes/etc.

Still, there is a function Trim (cmd+T) that allows you to cut the video.

The ONLY thing you need to find is the place where some error occurred and trim the video before the error (once trimmed it will be possible to share it) and after the error. So, you will have two parts of the video.

If you got several error during the recording you will have to perform the trimming procedure more times searching for the errors and cutting the video into more pieces.

Hope it helps.