iMovie Keeps Crashing While Editing

Question

iMovie Keeps Crashing While Editing

iMovie is constantly crashing on me. I have been producing several iMovie projects in the past couple weeks. In order to keep the space free on my Mac, I've been doing these projects on an external drive. I created a new iMovie library on that external drive.

Most of the projects I'm working on in iMovie are put together from several clips that have a total length between one and two hours. Each finished projects is less than an hour. Some are about 30 minutes.

Two interesting things happen when my iMovie crashes. I can force quit it, but when I try to reopen it, I can't. It just keeps bouncing on the dock. The only way I can reopen iMovie, is if I restart the computer.

The other interesting thing that happens is that it affects my other Apple apps, such as Finder and Safari. Finder runs really slow, and sometimes I have to force quit that. As far as Safari goes, I cannot search the web on it. But if I open up Chrome, I can search the web on Chrome no problem.

Any ideas as to how I can make iMovie run more smoothly without crashing every five minutes of editing?

Thanks,

Pat

MacBook Pro (2017 – 2020)

Posted on Mar 24, 2025 5:40 PM

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Answer 1

Rich839

Level 8

48,036 points

Mar 25, 2025 8:03 AM in response to pasqualerose2

Hi,

It sounds like you might have a conflict on your Mac or you are down to 2 or 3 GB of free space on your internal drive. Or possibly your external drive is not properly formatted to either Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or APFS.

Check your internal drive to make sure that you have sufficient free space for iMovie to operate efficiently. Should have at least have 10 GB. If you have enough free space, then try rebooting in Safe Mode and, after everything loads, shut down and reboot in normal mode. That might clear up any conflicts that exist.

Finally, on your external drive's icon do a Control-click and select Get Info from the pop up menu. Make sure that the drive is properly formatted either Mac Os Extended (Journaled) or APFS, and that the box ion the bottom of the information display is checked that says "Ignore ownership on this volume". If you need to reformat, be aware that reformatting erases all data on the drive. So before reformatting make sure that you have backed up elsewhere any data that you want to keep.

-- Rich

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Answer 2

Mar 25, 2025 2:20 PM in response to Rich839

Thanks Rich! I don't remember how I formatted the drive. I probably formatted it over a year ago. I do have newer external drive that I formatted a few weeks ago using APFS. I'll move the library to that drive. It also has more space available.

Thanks.

Pat

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Answer 3

Rich839

Level 8

48,036 points

Mar 25, 2025 3:47 PM in response to pasqualerose2

You might want to try booting up in Safe Mode first, as that might solve the problem quickly. Boot up in Safe Mode and after everything finishes loading immediately shut down and re-boot in normal mode.

-- Rich

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Answer 4

Mar 28, 2025 2:31 PM in response to Rich839

The hard drive on my computer has 60 GB of space. I did switch to a different external drive from the one I was using. The drive I'm currently using is formatted to APFS, and the box on the bottom of the information display is checked that says "Ignore ownership on this volume" (although the box is grayed out and cannot be checked or unchecked). That external hard drive has over 1 TB of space on it.

Also, I did reboot in safe mode, and I'm not sure what that did. It didn't seem to do anything at all. When the computer came on in safe mode, I had no wallpaper picture. The desktop was black, but it display all my folder and document icons that are on the desktop, and the dock was there as well.

It does seem like the longer I work on a video project, the more likely it is to crash. And when iMovie does crash, I have to restart the computer in order to re-open iMovie. This is true, even though I am force quitting iMovie after it crashes.

So is it crashing because of the length of the movies? The curtain movie I'm working on is going to be about 45 minutes long.

Thanks,

Pat

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Answer 5

Rich839

Level 8

48,036 points

Mar 28, 2025 6:07 PM in response to pasqualerose2

iMovie can ealisly handle a 45 minute movie.

I don't know what is causing the crashing issue. You might benefit from calling Apple Support and discussing the issue with the techs there. They have the capability of remotely accessing your computer that we cannot do here. Click on the Support item at the top right of this forum's screen and navigate to a place where you can input your telephone number.

Good luck with this.

-- Rich

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