iMove 10 -- moving files to ext drive

Discussion in 'Digital Video' started by 2ms, Jan 10, 2014.

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  1. 2ms, Jan 10, 2014
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2014

    2ms macrumors 6502

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    #1
    I have a rMBP with the 256GB drive, and it's amazing how quickly your drive space disappears when you start working with a little HD video...

    So I followed the instructions on this page, and created a new iMovie library on an external drive. Then I copied all my events to the new library. But when I delete the original events from my internal drive, my projects stop working, indicating they are missing various clips.

    Does anyone know how to repoint the projects to the new library location or move the projects themselves to the external drive so they start working again?
     
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  2. daybreak, Jan 10, 2014

    daybreak macrumors 6502a

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    #2
    Are you using Maverick?. If you are you will notice there are now two version of iMovie.:)
     
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  3. 2ms, Jan 10, 2014

    2ms thread starter macrumors 6502

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    #3
    I am, but I only have iMovie 10. But even if I had both, I would prefer to use iMovie 10 as long as it is possible to get my projects working with external library.
     
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  4. firedept, Jan 10, 2014

    firedept macrumors 603

    firedept

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    #4
    All I can think of is something got corrupted when you tried it the first time or it did not complete moving all the files over to the external drive. Have read that when moving your library to external, iMovie will do things in the background without your knowledge or you knowing when it is actually completed.

    I am hoping you still have a backup of the original files. Place original files back in place, make sure all is working fine, then try again. I see what instructions you followed from Apples site. Try doing it over or try what I posted below. Hopefully this will help.

    You can create a brand new Library under File Menu>Open Library>New...

    Create the new library on the external hard drive. Then drag all the Events/Projects folders into that Library. Close the Library, quit iMovie 10.x. Now test the new Library by opening iMovie again and see that all the Events/Projects are there in the New Library. You can now safely delete or close the existing Library file as those are now duplicates of the real Library sitting on the external hard drive.

    Another way to do this is find the existing Library file, and simply drag it to the external hard drive in the Mac Finder (disk to disk copy of the Library file, by drag and dropping). Then go back into iMovie, File Menu>Open Library>Other... then navigate out to the external hard drive and choose the Library you moved within the Finder.
     
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  5. 2ms, Jan 12, 2014

    2ms thread starter macrumors 6502

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    #5
    Argh! I tried to restore the files from Time Machine, and I see them all in the Movies directory on my internal drive. But when I launch iMovie, they are not visible in the list on the left, and when I try File>Open Library>iMove Library (the restored one), I get "The file CurrentVersion.flexolibrary couldn't be saved"

    I'm getting scared here. All the original footage seems to be intact. However, I currently have no working Projects. That would be a huge amount of work lost!

    Anyone with further suggestions? Thank you so much for the advice so far.
     
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  6. 2ms, Jan 13, 2014

    2ms thread starter macrumors 6502

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    #6
    Well, I see now that the project files work great in iMovie 9/'11! So anyone have advice on getting them to work again in iMovie 10?

    I guess the problem might be that the restored files pre-date my upgrade to Mavericks and iMovie 10.
     
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  7. pna, Jan 16, 2014

    pna macrumors 6502

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    #7
    If that's the case, can you use the 'upgrade library', feature built in to iMovie 10 to make them compatible once more?

    This is purely speculation, as I haven't yet even let iMovie 10 upgrade my old projects yet. I, like you, started working from scratch with about 35-40 minutes of total footage in clips that were in my aperture library, and before I knew it, I had to shift basically everything else off of my main 128 Gb SSD to give iMovie the space to do… whatever exactly it was doing. Now that I've finished and exported that project as a movie (which looks fantastic, btw), I'm looking into moving the whole library onto an external drive so I can get all of that space back. I started reading your post to see how you'd gotten along in that process.
     
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