Photos Library not showing up in iMovie

iMovie will only recognize a Photos library that is designated as the system library. To check, open the Photos app and go to Photos/Preferences/General and make sure that the box that says "use as System Photo library" is grayed out. Grayed out means that the library is already your system photo library and you need do nothing further. If it is not grayed out, click on it to gray it out.

If the Photos item in iMovie is still grayed out, that might mean that your photos are in the cloud, such as iCloud Photos, and you have selected the "optimize Mac storage" preference. iMovie will only recognize photos that are physically stored in your Photos library. When you have "optimize Mac Storage" selected only reference thumbnails are stored in the Photos library, and these will not be recognized by iMovie. I'm not quite sure of the procedure, but if you turn off iCloud Photos and "optimize Mac Storage" you may have to wait quite a while for iCloud to download all of your photos, and, of course, they would take up space on your drive. If you try that I suggest that you first post in the Photos for Mac Forum for the procedure and any risks that might be involved.

-- Rich

iMovie will only recognize a photo library that is designated your system photo library. Check your Photos app General preferences to make sure that the box that says "Use as System Photo library" is grayed out. Grayed out means that it is already your system photo library. If it's not grayed out, click on the box to gray it out. Now see if iMovie will recognize the Photos library.

-- Rich

Hi Rich,

I'm having this same problem too. iMovie 10.1.14 on Catalina 10.15.2 running on an iMac. Have verified many times that the Photos library is the System Library. Tried your other two solutions without any luck. No Photo Library showing up per below. Any other ideas?

Photos that are in the cloud, such as iCloud Photos with optimized storage, won't show up in iMovie.

Also, are you opening iMovie in the same user account that contains your iMovie photo system library?

For further diagnostics you could try opening iMovie while holding down the Option and Command keys and selecting to delete preferences in the box that appears. iMovie will open in a new library. Reopen your old library to get back to your projects. Now see if iMovie will read your Photos library.

Another thing that you can try is to redownload iMovie. To do that drag your iMovie app from the applications folder into the trash, but don't empty the trash. Then sign in to the app store with your Apple I.D. and password. Open your app store account by clicking on your Apple I.D. at the bottom of the app store side bar. When your account opens you will see a list of your purchases, iMovie among them. See if you can redownload iMovie from there. If for some reason the download is not available or is unsuccessful, drag your old iMovie out of the trash and replace it back in the Applications folder.

-- Rich

mvrippo and csmacatee,

If you are continuing to have issue with the Photos library item not appearing in iMovie, and have tried the suggestions in this thread, I suggest that you call Apple Support to see if they can help. They have testing equipment and can remotely access your computer, plus they are very savvy. To contact support click on the Contact Support item at the upper right hand corner of this forum's screen, and navigate to a phone number. They might be able to solve it.

-- Rich

I wasted many hours trying to research why Photos did not show up in my IMovie library. Apple support really should alert users that the problem might be in the the Security & Privacy setting. Thank you so much csmacatee for taking the time to report this to other users.

Great suggestions guys! That was the exact issue on my end as well. All is good now. Thanks again!