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Equalizing the volumes of many clips in iMovie.

I've got the same problem as this guy:

I've got around a hundred clips from various devices and the audio levels vary a lot. Is there a way to normalize volume levels across the whole project so I don't have to adjust each individual clip?

At a Mac class in 2009 for my MacBook Air he showed me a switch that would automatically equalize the volumes of all the clips I had in iMovie but when I tried it on a two hour class it messed up the volumes and I had to shut it off and adjust the volumes manually. Now I do not know what that switch is in 2024 on my MacBook Pro iMovie but I would like to try it again to see if they have gotten better at equalizing the volumes of the many clips that I have in iMovie.

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 13.6

Posted on Sep 30, 2024 12:04 PM

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3 replies

Sep 30, 2024 11:30 PM in response to mdougo

It seems that either the iMovie app is not functioning properly or there is some glitch in the specific project.


You might try the following:


  1. First, do an Edit/Undo as many times as necessary to see if you can get back to where you were.
  2. Failing that, delete preferences by opening iMovie while holding down the Option and Command keys, and selecting to delete preferences from the box that appears. iMovie will open in a new library. Reopen your original library to get back to your projects.
  3. If still not functioning correctly, transfer your media into a newly created project. To do that, do an Edit/Select All, Edit/ Copy, and then Edit/Paste the media into the timeline of a newly created project. Your edits will carry over. And if they don't you still have your old project intact.
  4. If still no luck getting iMovie to work correctly, try reverting to an earlier backup of your iMovie library in the iMovie Backups folder. 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


NOTE:  If running Ventura or later, in the above

file path substitute iMovie for com.apple.iMovieApp.  So, for Ventura,

the file path would read:


Go/Home/Library/Containers/iMovie/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.   Navigate to your projects browser (where your projects are displayed as icons) and see if your projects are intact.


5.As a last resort, if you keep a Time Machine backup you can restore your library to an earlier point in time from when you made the volume change. Restore it to a different location so it does not overwrite the original library.


-- Rich

Sep 30, 2024 6:30 PM in response to Rich839

I shift clicked all the clips and it increased the volume of all the clips that I had silenced, (because I had VoiceOvers taking their place). The many clips that I had silenced now have volume. It's a good thing I had a copy of that one hour video before I did the "shift click and volume" because now it's ruined and it's going to be too much work to fix it.

Equalizing the volumes of many clips in iMovie.

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