iMovie '08 - Can you Delete "iPhoto Videos" EVENT??? (it's killing me)

Scott-n-Houston said:

I, like an idiot, agreed to let it import all videos that were in iPhoto.

It's really bogged it down every time I open it, etc. I want to delete this event, but it won't let me! I'm kind of a noob, so sorry if it's obvious, but I've searched here and all over with google to find no answer.

Is there a way to do this?

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one way I got around this was (I'm sure there was an easier way) was to delete all the video clips then the event went poof.

Scott-and-Houston

sorry you have this problem....because i have already heard of this in reviews this is why i won't upgrade...i just cannot understand Apples thinking across their product line that they make changes some of which are stupid and then at the very least leave in a persons option not to use the change....which is a larger question that puzzles me as to why both microsft and apple continue to produce straight linked OS products and havent realized the protential of offering lego like connecting modules that you can pick and choose from in creating your own OS specifc to what YOU need...but they wont because after marketers want to make money so they produce half done OS that force you to buy 3rd party stuff and spend more than you wanted to. i dont like this "event" nonsense and like the leopard menu bar it too should be options.....

Scott-n-Houston said:

I can't trash the Event or the vids within it in iMovie.
So you physically deleted off the drive in Finder? It's like 400 movies, and I'm not anxious to do that, but I do appreciate the help. You got me thinking...

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Sections of it I hit the delete key after selecting a section or selecting the whole video clip.

To remove the whole event, just right click and "Move Event to Trash" and that removes the entire event.

Scott-n-Houston said:

I found that true with every event except this one...

Move Event to Trash is grayed out on the top menu.




What's odd about this is, when you open iMovie for the first time, it asks if you want to bring in iPhoto videos... It's optional... but once you go ahead and agree, it's permanent! WTF?!

iMovie is definitely the weak link on my new iMac.

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Sorry you feel that way. I believe the imported movies from iPhoto (I have a few and didn't import them, are just linked to iPhoto maybe? Which is why you can't delete them from iMovie. I don't import mine since they show up in my event viewer anyway under iPhoto Movies so there's no need to import them. And they are deletable this way.

I've never had any issues with iMovie other than the missing effects. Doesn't make sense why your having these issues. There might be a prob not related to iMovie or maybe something with the files being read only or a bad import, are they linked to an event (which wouldn't necessarily cause it to not allow deletion) or improper file permissions or whatever. Maybe rather than us guessing did you call apple care?

If it's just one event, then it's more than likely not iMovie and those files are messed up somehow. I just imported some iPhoto movies (vids taken from my kodak camera) and deleted the event without issue. I did select the "Copy" and not "Move" option (since I didn't want to permanently delete the movies).

I think the issue is not iMovie but how iMovie is reacting to the files?

Removing iPhoto videos

I came across this thread when I was searching for a way to remove "iPhoto Videos" from the event library some time ago. iMovie slows down to a crawl if you have tons of video clips in iPhoto and becomes frustrating to use. Here's what I found out.

When you "stupidly;-)" click "Now" instead of "Later" when it asks to make make thumbnails (wish there was a way of turning off this box), iMovie 08 goes into your iPhoto library and for every movie, it creates a thumbnail video in the corresponding "Data" folder (the original pics and videos will be stored sorted in the "Originals" folder.) In additional there is a iMovie.??? file (I deleted it some time ago so I don't know the exact extension) in the root of the Pictures folder which is probably a list of all the created thumbnail videos.

So to remove.

Navigate to where you have the icon of the "Pictures" folder in your "Users/????" folder. You have to right-click then "Show Package Contents" to actually see inside this folder. Now you'll have to do the same with the "iPhoto Library" icon i.e show package contents etc. Inside this folder you will see am iMovie.??? file, delete it. Now go to the "Data" folder. Go through every folder inside and delete just the thumbnail movie file. DO NOT delete the jpg file as that is used as the thumbnail for your events in iPhoto. Once you finished, load iMovie and you back to an empty "iPhoto Videos" events and the original spiffy performance. Now I just copy the videos I want to a folder on the desktop, import the movies into a new or existing event, do my youtube video, also Export a full size version for backup and I can delete the old events and projects in my Movies folder that I don't want any more. Neat and simple.

Deleting movies in 'Event Library' iMovie 08

1) Highlight the name of the movie(s) in the 'Event Library' that you'd like to delete
2) Hold down the 'Command(Apple) key' and press the 'Delete' key

This will delete the movies from your event library.

It's as easy as a pie

First you REJECT them then you MOVE REJECTED ITEMS TO TRASH.

Right click/ ctrl+click the clip that you want to delete then right click/ ctrl+click on the 'last import' or 'Macintosh HD' on the right and click MOVE REJECTED ITEMS TO TRASH.

Hope this helps.

danpercival said:

I came across this thread when I was searching for a way to remove "iPhoto Videos" from the event library some time ago. iMovie slows down to a crawl if you have tons of video clips in iPhoto and becomes frustrating to use. Here's what I found out.

When you "stupidly;-)" click "Now" instead of "Later" when it asks to make make thumbnails (wish there was a way of turning off this box), iMovie 08 goes into your iPhoto library and for every movie, it creates a thumbnail video in the corresponding "Data" folder (the original pics and videos will be stored sorted in the "Originals" folder.) In additional there is a iMovie.??? file (I deleted it some time ago so I don't know the exact extension) in the root of the Pictures folder which is probably a list of all the created thumbnail videos.

So to remove.

Navigate to where you have the icon of the "Pictures" folder in your "Users/????" folder. You have to right-click then "Show Package Contents" to actually see inside this folder. Now you'll have to do the same with the "iPhoto Library" icon i.e show package contents etc. Inside this folder you will see am iMovie.??? file, delete it. Now go to the "Data" folder. Go through every folder inside and delete just the thumbnail movie file. DO NOT delete the jpg file as that is used as the thumbnail for your events in iPhoto. Once you finished, load iMovie and you back to an empty "iPhoto Videos" events and the original spiffy performance. Now I just copy the videos I want to a folder on the desktop, import the movies into a new or existing event, do my youtube video, also Export a full size version for backup and I can delete the old events and projects in my Movies folder that I don't want any more. Neat and simple.

Click to expand...

Please try to re-explain this, it is very hard and confusing to understand. It sounds like it will solve my problem though.
I am trying to de-link iphoto from imovie because it significantly slows down my imovie program. I know how to remove events, but that's not what I am trying to do. I don't want imovie to link to iphoto to get movies.

Just create new events and copy

I had the problem of slow performance as well, and other weird issues because all the movies are grouped in a single event. All I had to do was create new custom events, then drag the clips I want into their own events. I'm hoping it's not actually creating a duplicate on my hard drive when I do this, but in any case the performance is snappy once again, and I'm able to get my editing done in the new event that I've created.

Unlinking iPhoto Events

So I worked around it like this:

Exported any event in iPhoto that had a video in it to a folder with the event name on the desktop
Deleted the event from iPhoto
Opened iMovie - all iPhoto events gone when it updated the iPhoto thumbnails (because there are now no events in iPhoto which have a video)
Then close iMovie
Reimport events back in to iPhoto
Open iMovie - et voila, it asks the 'now' or 'later' question
Remember to click LATER!

I followed the above instructions but just wanted to post a better method. Instead of exporting and reimporting the entire event, just create a smart album and for the condition choose "Photo" is "Movie" and name that smart album "All Videos".

Then just Select All to export everything in that Smart Album to somewhere in your computer. From imovie you can then import them from that location.

Afterwards, go back to iPhoto and delete all the videos in that Smart Album.

newagemac said:

I followed the above instructions but just wanted to post a better method. Instead of exporting and reimporting the entire event, just create a smart album and for the condition choose "Photo" is "Movie" and name that smart album "All Videos".

Then just Select All to export everything in that Smart Album to somewhere in your computer. From imovie you can then import them from that location.

Afterwards, go back to iPhoto and delete all the videos in that Smart Album.

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Not having played with iPhoto smart folders much, I didn't know you could filter by video. I've been considering removing the videos from iPhoto for a while now. Thank you for the post.

xStep said:

Not having played with iPhoto smart folders much, I didn't know you could filter by video. I've been considering removing the videos from iPhoto for a while now. Thank you for the post.

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I found a easier way to fix this.
I am using iMovie 11 which encounter hang of system all the time.

1. In iphoto , choose File -> switch to other library
2. Create a new iPhoto library
3. You will find this new iPhoto library is empty
4. Open iMovie
5. You will find the iPhoto video in the event library is gone...So Happy.
6. Go back to iPhoto and switch back to your original library.