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User profile for user: sonyap23
sonyap23 Author
User level: Level 1
17 points

Imovie disaster - have lost ALL my projects?

Hi there


I had an imovie library on my desktop, which crashed in the summer. I had another one on my external hard drive that had ALL my movies and projects for work on it.


when i opened imovie today to make a new project, they were not there. I started making the project and wanted to include a clip from one of the old projects, went onto my hard drive and found two imovie libraries ? i opened both and neither have my old movies on them? is there any way of somehow getting these? where would they be and why have they disappeared?


really anxious that i have not lost the 20 or so projects that I had made for work?!!


every time i open imovie it seems to wipe whatever i have done. is there a way of finding out which imovie library the projects are getting automatically saved to? I coudnt find my new project a moment ago - its definitely not on the hard drive ? there must be something wrong in the save settings but i couldnt work out how to change them.


any advice welcomed. thank you in advance.



Posted on Jan 27, 2023 5:51 AM

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User profile for user: Rich839
Rich839
User level: Level 8
47,676 points

Posted on Jan 27, 2023 8:26 AM

Hi,


The first thing to do is open your projects browser screen and, at the top of the screen, activate the popup box and click on "All Projects" and then the name of your library that is displayed. (There may be more than one library shown.) That should reveal all projects that are in the library that you chose. If no projects shown, then possibly they are located in another library, so open that one to see.


You can have many iMovie libraries. By default they will be located in the Movies folder on your Mac (Go/Home/Movies). However, you can store iMovie libraries in other places as well, such as an external drive. If you store an iMovie library on an external drive, the drive must be formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or APFS, or it will not function correctly. If that is your situation that might explain why you are having some issues. In such case you would need to reformat the external drive per the above. Be aware that reformatting erases all data on the drive, so before reformatting you must back up elsewhere all data on the drive.


When you open a project you will see the iMovie library name in the side bar. That is the library to which your projects will be saved.



If you are still having problems finding your projects, try looking in the iMovie Backup folder to open a previously automatically saved backup of your various libraries.


To get to the iMovie Backups folder, follow this file path from the Finder menu:


Go/Home/Library/Containers/com.apple.iMovieApp/Data/Library/Caches/iMovieBackups


When you get there you will see a list of previous backups of your iMovie library.  Click on one dated just before

your issue started.  iMovie will open in that library.  It will not overwrite your original library. Navigate to your projects browser (where your projects are displayed as icons) and see if your projects are intact.


-- Rich



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Question marked as Top-ranking reply
User profile for user: Rich839
Rich839
User level: Level 8
47,676 points

Jan 27, 2023 8:26 AM in response to sonyap23

Hi,


The first thing to do is open your projects browser screen and, at the top of the screen, activate the popup box and click on "All Projects" and then the name of your library that is displayed. (There may be more than one library shown.) That should reveal all projects that are in the library that you chose. If no projects shown, then possibly they are located in another library, so open that one to see.


You can have many iMovie libraries. By default they will be located in the Movies folder on your Mac (Go/Home/Movies). However, you can store iMovie libraries in other places as well, such as an external drive. If you store an iMovie library on an external drive, the drive must be formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or APFS, or it will not function correctly. If that is your situation that might explain why you are having some issues. In such case you would need to reformat the external drive per the above. Be aware that reformatting erases all data on the drive, so before reformatting you must back up elsewhere all data on the drive.


When you open a project you will see the iMovie library name in the side bar. That is the library to which your projects will be saved.



If you are still having problems finding your projects, try looking in the iMovie Backup folder to open a previously automatically saved backup of your various libraries.


To get to the iMovie Backups folder, follow this file path from the Finder menu:


Go/Home/Library/Containers/com.apple.iMovieApp/Data/Library/Caches/iMovieBackups


When you get there you will see a list of previous backups of your iMovie library.  Click on one dated just before

your issue started.  iMovie will open in that library.  It will not overwrite your original library. Navigate to your projects browser (where your projects are displayed as icons) and see if your projects are intact.


-- Rich



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Imovie disaster - have lost ALL my projects?

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