Can't delete projects in iMovie 10

Actually it is much easier than the helpful answer (which works too)

Open Library -> New

Choose any name (e.g. delete me)

Click on the three dots of the project you want deleted

Choose the Move to library option and select the newly made library

Click on the three dots of the project you want deleted -> Delete

You can leave the library for future problems or delete it if you want.

Hi.

I had the same problem too and I looked up any possible solutions, but without luck.

I found a solution though!

In the menu where you can see your projects, click "medias" instead of the "projects" tab in the top middle.

Then I found the medias that I had in the project I wanted to delete, right-clicked them and deleted them from there.

Once they were all gone, I clicked back into "projects" and deleted the project.

That worked.

Kind Regards,

Niko

I'm not sure if people are still looking for a solution but I finally learned that if I delete all the clips and files in the editing mode, it lets me delete the project. Hope this helps!

Hallo Rich!

I had this problem as well, but I just found a solution!

I'm not quite sure this will work for you, but give it a go... 😉

You're gonna want to open the project you want to delete,

then simply delete all of the clips/pics that is contained in the video. (I can see this could be a problem if you want to keep the clips, but I guess you could transfer them to your computer if they aren't there already)

After this, you can just click out of the project and then try again to delete the project...

This method worked perfectly for me, and I hope it will help you or others with this problem!

- Sebastian 🙂

Thanks for that. One would think that if Apple know about the problem they could have sorted it by now! The workaround worked easily for me but I wasted a **** of a lot of my (valuable?) time before I started to google the problem and found it was a bug. Not being a frequent user of iMovie I thought it was something that I was doing wrong. Perhaps Apple should have a published list of known bugs by Applications. Or do they already have that and I am just ignorant?

Tried deleting projects, library, the select all and then delete in the top bar in editing. Still didn't allow because of unfinished tasks I could not find. So I tried, this is a tedious way to do it because I am no Technician by any means but, I went back into the editing in my Project itself and had to undue all the editing I did one previous by one previous one until there was nothing left to undue including adding the file when I chose it to be edited which then allowed me to delete the Project to the Trash. Of course this was after sending a finished edit to my files.

I had the same problem, what I decided to do was go into the finder and into the movies tab, there you will find the imovie library. Click with two fingers to open the menu and click the "show package contents" option and delete the projects you need to delete.

Hi, Gabriel,

Deleting projects or making any changes from within the iMovie package contents can be risky. It could cause corruption of your iMovie library. I once deleted a project from the package contents and I had to replace my iMovie library from a back up to get it working properly again.

-- Rich

Others have reported this problem, but I am not aware of a solution. There was a long thread on it a little while back. Suggestions included

deleting iMovie preferences (open iMovie while pressing the option and command keys), and reinstalling iMovie. Deleting preference is simple so you might try that first.

Here's another thought: Create a new back up library and move the project there and see if you can delete it from there. You could even delete the whole

new library containing the project if you wanted. See Working with Multiple Libraries in the help menu for instructions. If this works it might not cure the underlying glitch, but at least it will get rid of the project.

Good luck with this.

Not sure of the idea being proposed. I create a new library, using the iMovie menu. correct. I name it whatever I want, such as "Delete library". Then I use the iMovie menu to move the project. Once I have got the project into the newly created library, I then try to delete it from there? Sounds good, but wouldn't the problem (whatever it is) exist in the new library? Plan B is to delete the newly created library?

Yes, that is what I am thinking, in the event that the issue is caused by some glitch in your main library. If it still won't delete from your newly created library, then just dump the new library and the project would go with it.

It may not work, but nothing to lose if nothing else you have tried is working.

Though not a great workaround, I suppose you could delete the media in the project, leaving a blank project. That would leave a black square in your projects screen.

As a note to my previous post, I just now created a blank project (by deleting the media from it) on a project that I couldn't delete (same as you), and I thereafter renamed the blank as a deleted project and to my surprise I was able to delete the blank project. You could try that and see if it works for you. I haven't had the deletion problem on other projects, though. So for you it seems to be a more global issue.

I just talked to Apple regarding this and learned it is a known problem and is in engineering. Here is the workaround they provided that worked for me. Create a new temporary ( I called mine TEST) catalog by clicking File... then Open Library... then New. Then from the Projects screen, click on the 3 dot circle and chose "Copy to Library" and chose TEST. Then go back to Media library, click on the temporary catalog (TEST), and from File, click Close Library. You can then go into Finder and move the TEST catalog to Trash. What this does is move the undelateable project into a new catalog which is then deleted and that removes the unwanted project from your display. Care should be taken to not close and delete your good or your primary catalog.

Hi,

So, the solution is to move the project to a newly created Test library, and then trash the Test library to throw out the undeletable project with it. Sounds like what I was saying in my previous posts, but you have actually proved that it works. Nice work.

For clarification: Did you mean "move to library" instead of "copy to library" to the get the project into your Test library? If you just copy it, the original will remain back in your old library after you trash your Test library.

-- Rich

I'm a little embarrassed that I had not read or absorbed what you had written, but yes, it as just as you stated. Also you are correct it is a move, not a copy. I had been looking for a solution for a couple months before I decided to contact Apple and was so impressd with the response and success I was a little too quick to share :-) Thank you Rich for you involvement with helping other.

-John