iphone video not showing for import

If you have iPhone 7 or later, it will by default export vids in the new HEVC format. Although iMovie 10.1.8 supports that format, possibly that might be causing the problem. If that applies to you, go into your iPhone settings and change the export format from high efficiency (HEVC) to "most compatible". See if that solves it.

-- Rich

The first thing is to update to both iMovie 10.1.8 and High Sierra. That might solve it, as that combination is designed for HEVC.

Your iPhone settings for Photos and Camera should contain the video recording settings. If it's set for "high efficiency video" (HEVC) (which it will be by default) you can change if to "Most compatible" and that will give you the standard H.264 codec rather than HEVC's H.265 codec. That would be for videos recorded in the future.

For videos already recorded you would need to share the movie to your desktop and use a converter like Handbrake to convert it to Mp4. Then you can import that into iMovie.

-- Rich

I just read this informative article about HEVC that you might find of interest:

http://www.idownloadblog.com/2017/09/23/how-to-ios-11-heir-havc/

One statement that I noticed in there was this: "Mac models from mid 2015 or earlier work with HEVC video that was captured at no greater than 1080p at 240 fps." I don't know whether your vids were recorded in 4K, but if they were that could be an issue with your older computer.

-- Rich

It shared out as a pro res .mov file because you chose the Best quality option when sharing out. All other share options would have yielded an H.264, Mp4 file. Pro res is a very high quality, high bitrate, high file size codec. But it is not the HEVC codec so that confirms that a shared out HEVC movie does not retain the HEVC codec.

Thanks for taking the time to do the experiment and reporting back your finding.

You can do a screen shot by simultaneously pressing Command>Shift>4, and that will morph your cursor into a cross-hair. Then with your trackpad or mouse, press-drag the morphed cursor over the screen to outline the area that you want to select, and release. That will give you a screen shot on your desktop of the area that you selected. If you want a shot of the whole screen, press Command>Shift>3. No need to outline anything. The screen shot will automatically be taken.

Cheers,

Rich

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Hi I’m having the same problem with iMovie not recognizing my videos recorded on my phone. I have an iPhone 8 Plus... how do I change the export format? Do you know where in the settings I’d be able to do that?

Glad I could help.

-- Rich

Hi, Darcy,

When you share out your HEVC movie from iMovie, is the final shared out movie in HEVC format?

-- Rich