Why can't I copy my 14 GB iMovie to a 32 GB flash Drive?

Hi, Don,

You might have exported from iMovie at Best Quality (pro res) setting. Because of the higher bitrate of that codec it would render a .mov file at a very large file size compared to sharing to Mp4. If that's the case, try sharing out to file at High quality instead of best quality, that will render an Mp4 movie at a much smaller file size. The size difference might be enough to enable you to share to your flash drive without converting through Quicktime.

You could also share out at a lower res and less quality setting, which would reduce file size.

Other than that I can't think of any more efficient way of doing it than you have already discovered.

-- Rich

Hi,

It is probably because your flash drive is not formatted for Apple. A drive formatted for Windows PC, such as MS DOS Fat 32 format, have a 4 GB limitation for any one file. If that's the case, then you need to use the Disk Utility app on your Mac to reformat the drive to MAC OS Extended (journaled). Reformatting the drive will erase all data on it, so before reformatting you should move to another drive all data that you want to keep.

-- Rich