My iMovie library is empty but huge!

"In iMovie I have moved everything out of the iMovie library into trash" What exactly did you move and how?

To see what is in your iMovie library right-click on it and select "show package contents". The 'original media folders contain your raw clips and stills. Don't change anything in it with the Finder though, only using iMovie.

If you upgraded from iMovie 9 you may still have iMovieprojects and imovieevents folders under <user> / Movies. Any original media in both imMvie 9 and iMovie 10 folders and libraries will only be deleted when both are deleted.

iMovie creates a lot of additional files and eventually anyone doing a significant amount of video editing finds it necessary put their library(ies) on an external drive.

Geoff.

"In iMovie I dragged clips from the IMovie library to trash until the library was empty." Ah! then you will only have deleted your original media but all the other files in your events will still be present. You need to select an event and choose "Move to Trash"

If you right (command) - click on the film icon you should see:

Show package contents (in list view showing folder sizes) gives:

(My iMovie library is quite small since I don't use iMovie any more).

"I would put things on an external drive if I knew what was there and how to do it even though it puts it out of reach of my cloud back up. Do you know where I can find instructions to do that?" How to put libraries on an external drive is described in the help files at: http://help.apple.com/imovie/mac/10.1/#/mov3fa25bae7

I assume you are paying for extra iCloud backup space - you will need quite a lot for video stuff. I don't use it myself but I don't think you need to be limited to backing up files from your boot drive.

I see that you do have iMovie Projects and iMovie Events folders left over from iMovie 9 or earlier. These may also be quite large and can be deleted if you are done with iMovie 9 and have transferred any projects and events that you still want to work on to iMovie 10.

Geoff.

You can have as many libraries as you like wherever you like, it will not confuse iMovie.

I'm not quite clear what you are doing. The easiest way to move things into a new library is to copy or move complete events into the new library. If you are using iMovie 10.1 you need to copy projects as well (previous versions included them into events).

If you are importing raw video clips from the folder you created on the new drive you should be able to navigate to it in the import window and select the event you want to put them in.

" it refused to import any more videos at all either singly or in multiples either by importing, dragging or copying and pasting files in Finder"

Can you explain exactly what is happening?

Geoff.

Glad to help. You are welcome to click on "This helped me" at the foot of any of my posts that you found helpful (like you have already done on my last one).

Geoff.

I'd like to follow up on this question as well. I have the same issue. When I received a warning that my MacBook Air HD was nearly full I opened the documents folder to see what was taking up so much space. iMovie Library was the biggest culprit. However, when I looked at the document it is simply a blank-page doc. The question is: What happens if I simply drag that blank document into the trash? Will I lose all the movies on the HD? My concern is that many of the movies are stored in my DropBox which is on the HD.

Thanks

David

The default location for iMovie libraries is in the ~ / Movies folder and not the ~/ Documents folder. iMovie libraries are packages with the extension .imovielibrary and the icon:

I think you might be looking at something else.

Geoff.

Thanks Geoff. I attach an image of what I see when managing storage. My question is: What happens if I remove what appears to be a blank doc? David

I don't know why your library doesn't have the icon I posted but you can see that it is 5.53 GB in size and certainly not empty. If you right click on it and select 'show package contents' you will see all your events and projects folders - but don't change anything. If you throw it away you will loose everything in it!

Geoff.

Thank you Geoff. I appreciate your time. David