An iMovie library holds all the media and data used to make movies in iMovie. If your iMovie library is large and you want to free up storage space on your Mac, you can move your iMovie library to an external drive.

The steps below will guide you through process of coping or moving the video clips between libraries in iMovie. Following are the steps to Copy or Move Video Clips Between Libraries or Hard Disks in iMovie: Connect a hard disk to your Mac which contains the target library. Open 'iMovie' on your Mac. Choose 'File' tab. Select 'Open Library' option. Since iMovie doesn't have a setting to set a folder inside the drive and stores things at the root of an external drive, you can use folders to segregate projects quite nicely. When you open iMovie, just right click on the name of the external drive and make a new folder. Make a second folder and name them for each of you.

Transfer Imovie Library To New Mac

Before you move an iMovie library, it's a good idea to back up your Mac.

Moving your library to an external hard drive doesn’t affect any iMovie Theater content you have moved to iCloud.

Prepare your drive

You can store your library on an external storage device such as a USB Thunderbolt drive formatted as APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Apple doesn’t recommend storing iMovie libraries on external storage devices like SD cards and USB flash drives, or drives shared on a network.

You can’t store your library on an external drive or other disk used for Time Machine backups.

Move a library to an external storage device

1. Quit iMovie.
2. Select your external drive in the Finder, then choose File > Get Info.
3. If the information in Sharing & Permissions isn’t visible, click the triangle , then make sure the 'Ignore ownership on this volume' checkbox is selected. If it's not selected, click the lock icon to unlock it, enter an administrator name and password, and then select the checkbox.
4. Click your desktop to make sure that you’re in the Finder, then choose Go > Home from the menu bar at the top of your screen.
5. Open the Movies folder, then drag the file named iMovie Library to your external hard drive.
6. When the library file is finished copying to your external drive, double-click the library file on the external drive to open it in iMovie. If an alert appears asking you to give iMovie access to a removable volume, click OK.
   If you clicked Don't Allow, in the Finder choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, click Security and Privacy, then click Privacy. Click Files and Folders in the sidebar, then select 'Removable Volumes' under iMovie.
7. Make sure the library you moved contains all your media, then drag the original file from your Movies folder on your Mac to the Trash.

If you disconnect the external drive

Transfer Imovie Library To New Iphone

When your external drive is connected to your Mac, the library you moved to the external drive opens automatically in iMovie. If you disconnect the external drive containing the library, iMovie opens to a new, empty library created in the Movies folder on your Mac. iMovie automatically saves any projects you create and media you import in the new library.

Transfer Imovie Library To New Mac

If you want to open the library you moved to an external drive, you can open it after you reconnect the external drive. You can then move clips, events, and projects between libraries.

Although iMovie makes it easy for beginners to create a movie, saving a copy of the project to keep with you or open on a different computer isn’t exactly intuitive. This tutorial is specific to using iMovie on a computer, and does not apply to iMovie for iPhone or iPad. Instructions were written based on the assumption that the project is being saved to box.osu.edu OR a USB drive. However, steps are the same whether you use box.osu.edu or other cloud storage such as Google Drive, and whether you use a USB drive or other physical storage such as a portable hard drive.

Create your movie as usual. Follow the steps below to save a copy of your project. This allows you to open the project on other Macs and continue working on it next time.

Transfer Imovie Library To Newborn

1. In iMovie, click File > Open > New Library.
2. Choose Desktop as the location for your new library, and name this library DU (or other unique name).
3. Check your desktop; you should now see a file with the name DU.imovielibrary.
4. In iMovie, click on the Projects button (top left). You’ll be prompted to name your movie if you haven’t already done so.
5. In the Projects window, locate your movie, and click on the icon underneath (three dots inside a circle).
6. Select Move to Library > DU.
7. Close iMovie.
8. If you are saving to a USB drive (or other external drive) instead of to box.osu.edu, skip to step 11.
9. Open your account at box.osu.edu, and navigate to where you want to save your video project.
10. In box.osu.edu, click Upload (top right), and select DU.imovielibrary. Skip to step 13.
11. Connect your USB drive and a few seconds later, you should see an icon for your USB drive to appear on the desktop.
12. From the desktop, drag the DU.imovielibrary file onto your USB drive. Double click the USB drive icon and check to ensure your file is successfully transferred.
13. You may notice that the DU.imovielibrary file now appears as a folder. DO NOT rename or reorganize any of the contents in this folder. Your project is now saved, and you can exit out of iMovie and continue with editing your project later and/or on a different computer.
14. When you are ready to reopen your project for editing, drag the entire file (or folder) named DU.imovielibrary to the desktop of the computer you are working on, then double click on the DU.imovielibrary icon from the desktop. iMovie should automatically open, and your project will populate into the program. Continue editing as needed.
15. When you are finished, simply quit iMovie. The program has been auto-saving the entire time, so there is no need to click File > Save before quitting the program. (Also, in iMovie, there is no such thing as File > Save.)
16. Repeat steps 7-13 to ensure you have the most recent version of your project saved to box.osu.edu or your USB drive.