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I made a little more complex video in iMovie ver. 10.4.2. I tried to export it at 720p, but when it got to around a third of the way there, it stopped. I tried restarting my Mac, exporting it at 540p, and reinstalling iMovie, and setting the quality to "Low", all to no avail. Any ideas?
-TOWF
iMac 24″, macOS 15.0
Hi,
The resolution and quality has nothing to do with the issue.
There may be a corrupt clip or frame at the 1/3 point that is causing the export to abort. Expand your timeline full out and scroll around in that area. Look for black frames, white flashes, artifacts and any other signs of corruption. Cut out any that you find and try to export again.
Also, you may have insufficient free space in the destination drive to store the movie.
-- Rich
Hi. Thank you for replying. I checked through the video, and didn't find any sort of corruption. Also, I have more than enough space. The video exported is around 500 MB. I have around 64 GB left of space.
-TOWF
Try deleting preferences and see if that solves it.
To delete preferences open iMovie while holding down the Option and Command keys and select to delete preferences in the box that appears. iMovie will open in a new empty library. Reopen your old library to get back to your projects. (To reopen your old library close iMovie and go to your Movie folder or wherever you have your old iMovie library stored. Double click on the library’s icon. iMovie will open in that library.) Possibly you may need to reboot to set the changes. Deleting preferences is a safe procedure that will not cause data loss or disruption to your project.
Another thing to try is to create a new project and copy your media into it, and then see if you can get a complete export from the new project. To copy your media and your previous edits into a new project, do an Edit/Select All, Edit/Copy, in the original project, and then go to the newly created project and do an Edit/Paste. You may first need to click on the timeline of the new project to make sure that the media will paste into the timeline.
-- Rich
Hi Rich, I tried both methods, both didn't work. I'm starting to think it's something with the actual media. I don't think they're corrupted, but there might be something else that keeps it from exporting.
-TOWF
I use iMovie a lot and I can tell you that the issue started with the MacOS 15. I have tried everything and it randomly works fine sometimes. I have to close and open iMovie to get it to work (sometimes multiple times). As you said, the issue is while exporting it gets stuck (frozen). I also tried with Final Cut Pro and get the same issue. Hoping for Apple to see this and get it fix since I used both softwares for my business.
Possibly there is a clip in an unusual format, or one not compatible with iMovie.
-- Rich
Hi Rich, I actually tried putting the media files in a separate project, and it exported fine.
-TOWF
Great. Glad you got it working.
There must have been a glitch that was confined to just that one particular project, and was not present when exporting from the new project.
-- Rich
iMovie is stuck exporting
