I want to keep movies in theater but delete all other data?

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Level 1

12 points

I want to keep movies in theater but delete all other data?

My kids create many movies. Our 2TB hard drive is almost full and the computer is running super slow. I want to remove all raw and unnecessary data while keeping all their finished creations. I am certain there is a way to complete or "flatten" their videos and then delete all the pieces used to create it.

I see Media, Projects, Theater at the top.

-Under Media I see Photos library (not touching that), All events, iMovie Library with approximately 90 items.

-Under Projects I see what appear to be their completed films, but clicking on them reveal these are still working titles utilizing layered clips, audio and graphics.

-Under Theater, many of the "Projects" are here, but not all. There are also other iCloud projects from other devices here.

So far I did a test with an "unwanted video" and loaded to the theater, then when deleting the project it said I was going to get a library, then went to events and deleted those as well. The theater video is still there. Is this how it should work?

iMac

Posted on Sep 23, 2017 12:24 PM

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Answer 1

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Rich839

Level 8

47,676 points

Sep 23, 2017 3:36 PM in response to sjobzdt

Movie projects that have been shared to Theater are independent stand-alone entities stored in the iMovie Theater folder, not the iMovie Library, located in the Movies folder on your Mac. They are no longer dependent on any of the original media used to create them. Open your Theater browser screen and drag one of the movies to your desktop and you will see that it is an independent movie. For example, you could delete iMovie and the iMovie Library from your computer and the shared Theater movie would remain intact as a stand-a-lone.

Projects will only share to the iMovie Theater browser if you elect to share them there, either directly sharing them there or checking the Share to Theater box in the share dialogue box when you share out the project. If you don't do one of those things the project will not share to Theater. That is the reason that some of your iMovie projects are not appearing in the Theater browser -- you did not specifically share them there.

After sharing to Theater you can delete the Project and the Event folder that contains the media used to create it. That is the way it should work if you intend to delete the original media used to create the project. The media also would be deleted from other projects that may be referencing it.

Hope this helps.

-- Rich

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