Changing the thumbnail in iMovie

How do I change the thumbnail pic in my iMovie? It keeps randomly selecting a scene from somewhere in the movie that is not helpful in identifying the movie.

Posted on Oct 5, 2018 2:04 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 6, 2018 8:38 AM

Hi,


iMovie appears randomly to pick a frame at the midpoint of the movie to make its thumbnail. There is no setting to utilize that allows for manually selecting the thumbnail. Various proposed solutions have been unreliable. You can try adding a black background to the beginning and/or end of the movie, of whatever duration you want, to change the midpoint. Or adding or removing transitions.


There is a way, albeit somewhat complicated, of manually changing the thumbnail of a movie that you share to Theater. Take a look at this link (read it all the way through):


iMovie Theater Thumbnails/Posters


-- Rich

3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Oct 6, 2018 8:38 AM in response to NWLinda

Hi,


iMovie appears randomly to pick a frame at the midpoint of the movie to make its thumbnail. There is no setting to utilize that allows for manually selecting the thumbnail. Various proposed solutions have been unreliable. You can try adding a black background to the beginning and/or end of the movie, of whatever duration you want, to change the midpoint. Or adding or removing transitions.


There is a way, albeit somewhat complicated, of manually changing the thumbnail of a movie that you share to Theater. Take a look at this link (read it all the way through):


iMovie Theater Thumbnails/Posters


-- Rich

Oct 6, 2018 8:44 AM in response to Rich839

Thank you so much, Rich, for helping me out! That's interesting about iMovie using the midpoint of the video for the thumbnail. I'll see what happens if I add a black screen (on either end). I'd prefer a thumbnail of my choosing, rather than their random shot in the middle, so I'll also head over to the link you provided. Your help is much appreciated!

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Changing the thumbnail in iMovie

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