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I delete clips and stuff in the iMovie trash and delete it and nothing happens

iPowers

iPowers

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 23, 2006
269
0
Arizona
Here's the story. I made an amv today with imovie, and importing videos to make a movie took about 8 GB. I use it up and save it, then I delete the clips and songs, then delete it and it didn't come back.

I restared my computer. I mean imagine how much data this has happened in the past. I only have 5 Gb now thanks to this and I could actualy have 40 GB.

It somehow deleted in a zone where it doesn't get space. Is there a way I can fix this?
 
M

Makosuke

macrumors 604
Aug 15, 2001
6,663
1,244
The Cool Part of CA, USA
I'm not sure I understand your situation, but if you're talking about iMovie's trash, as opposed to the Finder trash, then this is normal. That is, more recent versions of iMovie don't "crop" clips when you delete pieces of it.

That is, if you import, say, a 30 second clip, then delete all but the middle 5 seconds, it will NOT remove that data from your disk. Older versions would re-write clips to remove the no-longer used space, but it was very slow, and I guess more likely to cause corruption.

So if you, say, imported a clip, copied 5 seconds out of the middle of it into your timeline, then deleted it, it won't be gone--since part of it is still in use, the whole clip is still there.

If you're saying you exported the finished AMV, then drug the whole iMovie project file in the Finder to the trash and emptied the trash, and the data isn't gone from disk, then I'm not sure. All data from the iMovie project, whether in iMovie's trash, the clips area, or the timeline, is stored within the iMovie project file. So if you put that in the trash and empty the trash, it should definitely be gone.

Not sure what would be happening in that situation...
 
iPowers

iPowers

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 23, 2006
269
0
Arizona
Makosuke said:
I'm not sure I understand your situation, but if you're talking about iMovie's trash, as opposed to the Finder trash, then this is normal. That is, more recent versions of iMovie don't "crop" clips when you delete pieces of it.

That is, if you import, say, a 30 second clip, then delete all but the middle 5 seconds, it will NOT remove that data from your disk. Older versions would re-write clips to remove the no-longer used space, but it was very slow, and I guess more likely to cause corruption.

So if you, say, imported a clip, copied 5 seconds out of the middle of it into your timeline, then deleted it, it won't be gone--since part of it is still in use, the whole clip is still there.

If you're saying you exported the finished AMV, then drug the whole iMovie project file in the Finder to the trash and emptied the trash, and the data isn't gone from disk, then I'm not sure. All data from the iMovie project, whether in iMovie's trash, the clips area, or the timeline, is stored within the iMovie project file. So if you put that in the trash and empty the trash, it should definitely be gone.

Not sure what would be happening in that situation...
Click to expand...

I delete it from the imovie trash and emptied it that way. I don't drag it to the desktop.
 
M

Makosuke

macrumors 604
Aug 15, 2001
6,663
1,244
The Cool Part of CA, USA
iPowers said:
I delete it from the imovie trash and emptied it that way. I don't drag it to the desktop.
Click to expand...
Well, then I think what you're seeing is normal. If the iMovie project still exists, any clips that contain video in use in the actual project will remain on disk even if you "empty" iMovie's trash.

I'm assuming since you're talking about an AMV you ripped big chunks of video then cut out little bits for the project. If so, then that means all the big chunks stay on disk even if you "empty trash" in iMovie.

The only way to actually free up that space is to do a full-quality export from iMovie and then delete the whole project. The disadvantage of this is that it's no longer editable, if you wanted to mess around with it in the future.

If you want to keep it editable, there's really nothing you can do. Next time try to capture as little extra material as possible is all I can suggest.
 
iPowers

iPowers

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 23, 2006
269
0
Arizona
Makosuke said:
Well, then I think what you're seeing is normal. If the iMovie project still exists, any clips that contain video in use in the actual project will remain on disk even if you "empty" iMovie's trash.

I'm assuming since you're talking about an AMV you ripped big chunks of video then cut out little bits for the project. If so, then that means all the big chunks stay on disk even if you "empty trash" in iMovie.

The only way to actually free up that space is to do a full-quality export from iMovie and then delete the whole project. The disadvantage of this is that it's no longer editable, if you wanted to mess around with it in the future.

If you want to keep it editable, there's really nothing you can do. Next time try to capture as little extra material as possible is all I can suggest.
Click to expand...

I see. If I delete the imovie trash and the disk space doesn't go up, does the space that didn't clear still stay in the project of whatever didn't get deleted?
 
S

snowrider1440

macrumors newbie
Feb 15, 2010
1
0
Same Issue

I've been having the exact same issue. Weird thing is, ive made many many imovie projects before with large amounts of footage and in order to save space i would delete all of the unwanted footage. it would go into the imovie trash bin and i would delete it from there, and almost immediately my computer space would be restored by however much i deleted in the imovie trash. But for some reason now i delete the footage in the imovie trash bin (7 gigs) and nothing happens, no space is restored on my computer. There has to be another way besides exporting the movie then deleting the file because think about it, why would they have a trash bin in imovie if it wasnt actually going to delete the files? you'd be better off just leaving them in the clips section instead of having them be deleted with no benefit. Please help!! thanks.
 
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