Can I work with 2 versions of iMovie?

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Level 1

8 points

Can I work with 2 versions of iMovie?

My Mac has iMovie 11 and is my master computer. My macbook has iMovie 10.0. I want to import a chunk of clips onto my macbook as it is a lot faster, and edit them there (but it came with iMovie 10) and then move them back to the Mac for storage & viewing (but this has iMovie '11 and probably wouldnt take iMovie 10). If I use iMOvie 10 to import, rename events etc can I then copy them back to the mac or will they be unviewable as it is an older version? Thanks for your help!

iMac (20-inch Mid 2007)

Posted on Mar 4, 2015 1:42 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

GeeD

Level 6

9,173 points

Mar 4, 2015 2:20 PM in response to Louziebuuz

You can only upgrade events & projects from iMovie 9 (=iMovie '11) to iMovie 10, not in the other direction, so once you start editing them in iMovie 10 you have to finish them there. You can of course share the finished movie to file and copy that file back to your other Mac to play it but you won't be able to edit it any more there unless you upgrade it to iMovie 10 (which is a free upgrade but requires Mavericks [OS 10.9] or later).

iMovie 10 is quite different from iMovie 9 so if you do decide to switch to editing in iMovie 10 be prepared for a steep(ish) learning curve.

There is another possibility - if you have Your iLife '11 install DVD from your old Mac you should be able to install iMovie 9 on your MacBook. (It is possible to have both versions on the same machine). I would still not recommend switching ongoing projects back and forth between machines though - it is too easy to mess things up.

Geoff.

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Answer 2

Louziebuuz Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 4, 2015 2:38 PM in response to GeeD

Great - thanks for your help. That was what I suspected might be the case so didnt want to start until I knew for sure. I think I have the iLife '11 Dvd so will try that. I'm not planning on making the projects on the macbook - just import the clips and rename them as the mac is very very slow at importing, plus I will need to break out 200 clips into events and rename those events once they are in iMovie (since I never figured out how to import clips from separate dates into separate events unless I imported directly from the camera). Then I will just copy the events folder onto an external drive and then back to the mac. Do you see any area for room for mistakes with that?

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Answer 3

GeeD

Level 6

9,173 points

Mar 4, 2015 3:01 PM in response to Louziebuuz

Importing clips into events on an external drive connected to the Mac Book using iMovie 9 then connecting the drive to the old Mac and accessing them from iMovie 9 should work OK. After installing iMovie 9 you should install any updates from the AppStore. There are least likely to be problems if both machines are using exactly the same version of iMovie.

Geoff.

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