iMovie You can copy or move your iMovie video projects to a compatible external hard disk. Moving or copying projects is useful if you want to work on a project using another computer that has iMovie installed, or if you want to free up space on your computer’s hard disk.
To copy or move a project to a hard disk:
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Connect an external hard disk to your computer.
An icon for the hard disk appears in the Event Library.
Note: To use an external hard disk with iMovie, it must be formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). iMovie doesn’t support network-attached storage or external flash memory drives.
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In the Project Library, click to select the project you want to copy or move, and then do one of the following:
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To copy the project, drag it to the icon of the hard disk (in the Event Library) to which you want to copy it, and then choose “Copy project” or “Copy project and Events.”
If you choose “Copy project,” none of the project’s video and other media (such as photos) is copied to the other disk. Rather, the project in its new location refers to the media in its original location. This means that in order to view or further edit the project in its new location, the hard disk where it’s located must be connected to the computer the project was copied from.
If you choose “Copy projects and Events,” the source video and other media you added to the project are copied to the new location, which means you can view and edit the project in its new location without being connected to the computer it was copied from.
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To move the project, hold down the Command key as you drag the project to the icon of the hard disk you want to move it to, and then choose “Move project” or “Move project and Events.”
If you choose “Move project,” none of the project’s source video and other media (such as photos) is moved to the other disk. Rather, the project in its new location refers to the media in its original location. This means that in order to view or further edit the project in its new location, the hard disk where it’s located must be connected to the computer the project was moved from.
If you choose “Move projects and Events,” the source video and other media you added to the project are moved to the new location and deleted from their original location, which means that you can view and edit the project in its new location without being connected to the computer the project was moved from. This also means that any projects still on the original computer that use footage that was moved refer to the footage in its new location. To view and edit these projects, the computer where they’re located must be connected to the hard disk the project was moved to.
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Moving or copying a large project can take several minutes.
You can consolidate all the media used in a project onto the same disk. This makes it easy to move the project and edit it from any computer that has iMovie installed. Go to this topic to learn how: Consolidate a project’s media.