Copy imovie project from one external hard drive to another

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Copy imovie project from one external hard drive to another

I put my iMovie project on an external hard drive. That worked great while I worked on the project. I would now like to put a copy of the project on another external hard drive. I have been having issues with the media of the project only transferring as "aliases" instead of JPEGS and MPEGS. I figured out how to transfer the actual media files into the second external HD but not all are working. There were not many that did not work so I figured I could just add the video back into the project but when I try to do this iMovie states there is not enough disk space... There is plenty of space left on the external hd. I am now wondering if the way I moved the real media in there has glitched the project on the second external HD?

Just to note how I moved the actual JPEGS and MPEGS over. The iMovie guy I spoke with at apple told me to just click and drag the project library over from HD1 to HD2. When I did this all it did was move the aliases. I noticed on HD1 that I had the movie library and also a folder called original media. This original media folder is where the actual MPEGS and JPEGS are located at. So I thought maybe I just needed to click and drag that over also. This did move the actual media over but iMovie couldn't seem to pick it up. I was still getting question marks in the iMovie project. I then took the actual media and clicked and dragged it over into the media folder you can get to if you ctrl click on the library on HD2. It asked me if I wanted to replace basically the aliases with the actual MPEGS and JPEGS and I clicked yes. This is where I now have most of the project working correctly but some did not seem to work. I could pretty easily fix this by just adding the missing video back in but the project is now not allowing me to do this stating the disk is full.

Basically my question is, what is the correct way to move an iMovie project from one external hard drive to another so that all the media actually goes with it?

MacBook Pro, macOS High Sierra (10.13.2), imovie 10.1.8

Posted on May 4, 2018 6:28 AM

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Answer 1

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Rich839

Level 8

48,168 points

May 4, 2018 7:01 AM in response to tarrynfs

Hi,

Consolidate your project media and then move the project from Library 1 on HD1 to Library 2 on HD2 by putting your cursor on the project's icon in the project brower screen, and clicking on the little circle next to its title. A drop down menu will give you the option to move the project to the new library. Both libraries need to be open and be listed in the iMovie media sidebar.

Below is a copy of the Help note on how to consolidate projects and events. You want to use the "Movie or Trailer" instructions to consolidate a project.

Consolidate Projects and events

In the course of creating a movie or trailer, you might use clips and photos outside of your library, especially if a storage device that contains media or iMovie libraries is attached to your Mac. If the media in a movie, a trailer, or an event is located outside your iMovie library, you can consolidate all the media in one location (either on your Mac or on a connected storage device) by copying the media to your iMovie library.

"Collect the source media files for a library or an event in one location

If you don’t see the Libraries list, click the Libraries List button at the top of the browser.
To select files to consolidate, do one of the following:
- Select a library in the Libraries list.
- Select one or more events in the Libraries list.
Do one of the following:
- Consolidate source media for a library: Choose File > Consolidate Library Media.
- Consolidate source media for an event: Choose File > Consolidate Event Media.
In the window that appears, click OK.If a message appears stating that there is nothing to consolidate, all of your media files are already consolidated in one location.

Collect the source media files for a movie or a trailer in one location

Do one of the following:
- If the project is not open: Click the Projects button in the toolbar.
- If the project is open: Click the Projects back button in the upper-left of the toolbar.
Select the project you want to consolidate, then choose File > Consolidate Project Media.
In the window that appears, click OK.If a message appears stating that there is nothing to consolidate, all of your media files are already consolidated in one location.The project media is consolidated into the open library."

Hope this helps.

-- Rich

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Copy imovie project from one external hard drive to another

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