When I import videos to iMovie, they don’t have audio.

Question

EPICGAMER890 Author

Level 1

4 points

When I import videos to iMovie, they don’t have audio.

I’m using a MacBook Pro 13” running on macOS Catalina.

I’m a YouTuber and I want to edit a video using iMovie.

I was screen recording on my iPad 7th Gen, then I airdropped it to my Mac.

I accepted it and saved it in the “Downloads” folder.

I open iMovie, created a new project (movie), clicked “Import Media”, selected the video I want to import, clicked “Import Selected”, clicked and dragged the video to the timeline and then, I see no audio on the timeline. I played it, I didn’t hear any audio. The video didn’t have any audio.

There was audio on my iPad when I played the video on the “Photos” app. There was audio on my Mac when I played it on “QuickTime Player”. But iMovie, no.

Maybe it’s the Catalina update?

Btw, the video file type is MPEG-4 movie. In the “Downloads” folder, it’s MP4.

MacBook Pro 13", macOS 10.15

Posted on Feb 4, 2020 3:44 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Rich839

Level 8

47,730 points

Feb 5, 2020 11:32 AM in response to EPICGAMER890

Open Handbrake and do a File/Open Source. Select your video as the source. Then do File/Start Encoding. By default it should convert to something that will work in iMovie.

Again, work with a duplicate so that you preserve your original video clip. Put your original clip on your desktop, select it, and do an Edit/Copy, Edit/Paste, to create a copy. Then work with the copy.

-- Rich

Reply

Answer 2

Rich839

Level 8

47,730 points

Feb 4, 2020 9:22 AM in response to EPICGAMER890

Not all Mp4 clips are compatible with iMovie. It should be Mp4/AAC, as iMovie likes the AAC audio codec. Open the clip in QuickTimePlayer and click on Window/Show Movie Inspector. In the box that appears the codecs for the clip will be shown. See what audio codec the clip has. If it is not AAC you might try converting the clip to H.264, Mp4/AAC with the free download, Handbrake, and then see if the converted clip will play audio in iMovie. (Even if the clip already is Mp4/AAC try the conversion anyway, as sometimes re-encoding cures format issues.)

Work with a duplicate clip so you preserve your original.

You can get Handbrake here:

https://handbrake.fr/

-- Rich

Reply