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Extract Source Videos From Library

I know almost nothing about iMovie or video editing as I only used it once briefly about 15 years ago so apologies if I'm not using the correct terminology etc.


I've been given 3 iMovie Library files that belonged to a family member that passed and which contain a number of home movie videos. As far as I can see, these are just raw unedited files as there doesn't appear to be any project or anything.


Some of these look like they were shot on tape and so must have been digitised via a capture card, whilst others look like they were shot on a modern digital camera and were probably originally imported as a file.


What I want is to extract these source video files and just save them as an AVI, Quicktime or whatever file so that I can distribute them to other family members and then, if someone wants to, they can edit it all.


Is there a way of doing this? The only thing I can find is that if I select each clip individually and go to File>Share>File but there are hundreds of clips which will take forever to do. Is there a quicker way? I also notice that doing this I can change the resolution, quality and compression and these make massive differences to the file size. I'd just like to export them at whatever their native resolution etc but I've no idea what that was or what format the digital files were in.


Any advice greatly appreciated.

Posted on Jun 29, 2023 7:34 AM

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Posted on Jun 29, 2023 11:19 AM

I think what you might have done is to click on the Library icon, and that causes the iMovie app to open. The library files and sub-files that you see are listed in the iMovie sidebar. Is that correct? If so, you are correct that you can't Option/drag the files out from the sidebar items. You would need to select the clip or clips and do a File/Reveal in Finder. That will cause an Original Media folder to pop up with the selected file highlighted. Then you can hold down the Option key and drag the selected clip out to the desktop. Or, do Edit/Copy, Edit/Paste. Main thing is that you want to be copying, not moving, the files. Otherwise you risk corrupting your iMovie library.


Another way to access the movie source files is to do a Control-click/Show Package Contents on the iMovie library icon. That will reveal a pop-up folder window that displays by list all of the projects and events that the library contains. Each project is a folder. You cannot open the projects from the Show Package Contents view, but you can open the project folder. Inside will be a sub-folder called Original Media, that contains all of the media (clips) that are in the project. From the Original Media folder you can group select and Option/Drag all of the media into a desktop folder. You would need to do the above procedure for each project and event. Again, copy, not move, the movie files, to avoid corrupting the library.


If the above is not your situation, then post back with more details.


-- Rich








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6 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jun 29, 2023 11:19 AM in response to Rich839

I think what you might have done is to click on the Library icon, and that causes the iMovie app to open. The library files and sub-files that you see are listed in the iMovie sidebar. Is that correct? If so, you are correct that you can't Option/drag the files out from the sidebar items. You would need to select the clip or clips and do a File/Reveal in Finder. That will cause an Original Media folder to pop up with the selected file highlighted. Then you can hold down the Option key and drag the selected clip out to the desktop. Or, do Edit/Copy, Edit/Paste. Main thing is that you want to be copying, not moving, the files. Otherwise you risk corrupting your iMovie library.


Another way to access the movie source files is to do a Control-click/Show Package Contents on the iMovie library icon. That will reveal a pop-up folder window that displays by list all of the projects and events that the library contains. Each project is a folder. You cannot open the projects from the Show Package Contents view, but you can open the project folder. Inside will be a sub-folder called Original Media, that contains all of the media (clips) that are in the project. From the Original Media folder you can group select and Option/Drag all of the media into a desktop folder. You would need to do the above procedure for each project and event. Again, copy, not move, the movie files, to avoid corrupting the library.


If the above is not your situation, then post back with more details.


-- Rich








Jun 29, 2023 9:01 AM in response to peakoverload

Hi,


Are these "library" files from iMovie 10, or an older version of iMovie, like iMovie 8 or 9? An iMovie 10 library folder icon should look like this:


. . . and have the extension .imovielibrary.


Is the above what you have?


Or does it look like one of these two folders:


Perhaps you can post a screen shot of the icon you are seeing and a view of its contents when opened. Are the contents movies or projects?


In any event, you should be able to select individually or as a batch and copy/drag individually or as a batch all of the movie files in the folders to a Finder folder on your desktop. Be sure to copy/drag (hold down the option key while dragging) rather than move them, so as to preserve the content in your original folders.


Another way is to select each movie, individually or as a batch, then then Edit/Paste them into a Finder folder on your desktop.


-- Rich

Jun 29, 2023 9:19 AM in response to Rich839

These must be iMovie 10 libraries as they have the first icon. When I open them, they open in iMovie 10 and I can see the three library files listed under Libraries.


Under each Library will be what I assume are folders. Some of these are named after the tapes that they were originally digitised from for example:

Library 1

Tape 1

Tape 2

Tape 3


Other times it just has a name of what it's about e.g.

Library 2

Italy 1964

Tokyo 1961


If I go into any of these 'subfolders', like Tape 1, I see individual video clips which I can play through in iMovie.

However, there are some video clips that don't appear to be in a sub folder. For example Library 3 has a folder in it called 03-09-2009 and in it are what look to be video clips but they all say Missing File when played. But if I click on Library 3 itself I see dozens of other videos that all play correctly. These all appear to be digital files filmed on a DSLR or something.


I've tried dragging the video clips into Finder but nothing happens and I've tried dragging the subfolders e.g. Tape 1 into Finder but again nothing happens. So far the only way I've found to get video clips out of it is to go to File>Share>File but as I say, there are hundreds of clips and I don't know if this would be doing something bad to the quality of the video files.


Sorry, I know so little about video editing but I'm the only one in the family with a Mac now so am just trying to help out.

Jun 29, 2023 9:54 AM in response to peakoverload

Can you do a Command-Shift-4 and take a screen shot of what you are seeing, and post it here?


When you say that you "open" the iMovie library, what procedure are you using to do that? Control-click/Show Package Contents? , or ordinary double click to open the iMovie app? Are you trying to drag out a movie from a sub-folder titled Original Media?


-- Rich



Extract Source Videos From Library

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