Keynote crashing over 25 GB file size

As you've probably guessed, your keynote file is too big and unwieldy because of those video files, so you have to find a way to shrink them down and then re-place them into your various slides.

The simplest way to do this - and it's not for everyone, though for my needs the video quality is fine - is to open the original of your video file in Quicktime Player, and then depending on which version of Quicktime Player you have, either "save as" or "export" and save a renamed version at a lower res. 480p is my preferred resolution since I present stuff on typical office-style video projectors; if you're presenting on a HDTV or something similar, you'll want a higher res like 720p. Experiment until you find a resolution you like and then stick with it, doing this process for all your video clips.

Replace the existing videos in your Keynote file with the lower-resolution versions and save after each one. Your file size will shrink and you'll be back in business in no time.

Try deselecting copy audio and movies option in Keynote preferences. As the media files are not copied into Keynote, the file size will be greatly reduced.

Obviously when you do this, media files are not carried over when copying the Keynote file to another system.

I have the same problem as you. Did you figure it out? I can't do anything. Its all because the latest keynote cannot handle heavy video related presentations. I have hours and hours of hi-rez video and my workshop is about video production so i can't use low quality video.

the latest keynote cannot handle heavy video related presentations.

This is just not true, Keynote can run video presentations just fine, we have never experienced issues with video files in 6.5. as we run large screen projection presentations at international conferences.

I'm sure your having difficulties so try resetting Keynote; perform all the steps in the order listed:

1. Remove Keynote version 6.5, you must use an application removal tool for this procedure to work: Appcleaner is free,
2. Empty the trash
3. Shut Down the Mac (Apple menu > Shut Down)
4. Wait 10 seconds, then press the power button
5. Immediately after you hear the startup tone, hold down the Shift key,
   release the Shift key when you see the grey Apple screen
   start up will take a few minutes longer than usual as the Mac is performing a software repair
6. Restart the Mac normally, (don’t hold down any keys during startup)
7. Install Keynote from the Mac App Store

my workshop is about video production so i can't use low quality video.

You will be aware that all video imported to Keynote is converted to H264?

We always convert our output to H264 using Compressor to have control of the conversion before placing in Keynote.

Tried that. I had the same problem before i upgraded to yosemite with 6.3 too. Yosemite and 6.5 were fresh installs too so the problem did not go away from fresh installs.

These are confirmed problems with me :

1. The "copy audio and movies into document" is a joke. Whether you check it or not, it copies/embeds it into the project

2. Package vs Single does not change the performance or size of 6.5 when working with large presentations. No matter what you try, 6.5 will always embed any video into its project file and the bigger that file gets the more sluggish it gets, the longer it takes the save, the more space you use up, the more invisible cache files are created.

3. My presentation is heavy with video, it's about 30 gigs and every video is compressed using compressor into mp4 as well. My presentation is 450 slides large and is a 2 day presentation. I will probably cut it into 2 eventually (day1 and day2) but I still want a project that references video, not embeds.

I had the same problem before yosemite with 6.3. The problem is when they changed keynote to version 6.xxx the option to reference video files was taken away even though they give an option in preferences.

I did find a work around. The only work around for my situation.

I converted 6.5 to keynote 09 version. It took a very long time for me but finally finished. Some of the images did not link so I relinked them in manually. This project has the same problem with being a large file but I was eventually able to create a session that "referenced" the video instead of "embedding" the video. I created a new 09 keynote session (it was 5.3) and copied slides in the newly saved 09 version (had to do this in sections because i had too many slides). Copying a slide from one 09 project to another 09 project with a video (cmd-c, cmd-v) is the ONLY way to reference video. once you copy all the slides in place and save, the session officially links (not embeds) the video and my project file went from 30g to under 100m. This does not work in 6.5. 6.5 also has a weird caching issue where it literally takes up double the drive space by slowly eating invisible cache that cannot be tracked without special software, and cannot be controlled to the best of my knowledge. Its not in the hidden library either, its invisible. This may have to do with me having an internal SSD, Im not sure. Once you quit the app, the drive space miraculously reappears. My situation was losing about 45 gigs ...gone. This issue no longer exists with the 5.3 referenced project. Its unfortunate because i love the look of 6.5 but apple has to fix this bug before i go back with large presentations.

1. The "copy audio and movies into document" is a joke. Whether you check it or not, it copies/embeds it into the project

I can select whether to copy audio and video files into the project file or not, depending on circumstances. However, making this preference setting should be done before adding media files, it can't be just turned on or off at will.

2. Package vs Single does not change the performance or size of 6.5 when working with large presentations. No matter what you try, 6.5 will always embed any video into its project file and the bigger that file gets the more sluggish it gets, the longer it takes the save, the more space you use up, the more invisible cache files are created.

My understanding from the Apple Knowledge Base is that the single XML file type is to increase compatibility between Mac and iOS devices. Package files are an option for better performance on Macs. I guess your not seeing this benefit?

It would be useful to check your System:

• ensure there is a minimum of 20% free space on all drives used
• there is an appropriate amount of RAM installed - we have minimum 16 GB on any of our Macs running Yosemite
• ensure there are no antivirus or so called cleaning apps installed on the Mac (these are
• and and are a massive drain on system performance)
• there are no unnecessary applications open during Keynote Play

3 My presentation is 450 slides large and is a 2 day presentation. I still want a project that references video, not embeds.

This is a good precaution, a small and compact project file is certainly good practice. One way I keep files small and compact is to create a Keynote file for each session; if there are 10 speakers with ten presentations there will be ten Keynote files.

Your comments on cache and drive space is a well known symptom of using an XML file for the single file format. I am fortunate to have any amount of drive space I need, editing in a broadcast spec environment requires the appropriate online and archive storage.

This may have to do with me having an internal SSD, Im not sure

Since I converted to SSD's for system, many of the performance hits I had in years gone by just went away, we now only use SSD's for system drives.