How do I share an imovie project with another mac that I own?

Hi Rich, while I thank you for your answer, I'm afraid it only reveals more of why I am exceedingly frustrated with Macs and Apple in general. I am NOT good at tech, I am an artist who creates video-performance pieces. I appreciate the relative intuitiveness of iMovie, but then I don't get why, if I am paying for iCloud and thousands of $$ more for a new Mac in order to try to keep my life simpler (instead of going PC), I can't access my iMovie projects from my 2 different Macs, and have them automatically update on all my devices, as I can for photos, documents, etc. I know there are a lot of Mac nerds who enjoy figuring all these things out, but as a 50-year-old who already has some serious memory/cognitive disabilities, this is just infuriating. I wish Apple could understand that there are millions of us for whom constant Updates are a serious problem - like if on random days your car suddenly changed how the accelerator works, but they tell you it's an "improvement " as you crash into the vehicle in front of you.

iMovie projects that are in editable form cannot be independently transferred. They must reside in an iMovie library, and then you transfer the library that contains the project. Or you can transfer a project from one library to another.

So, create a new iMovie library on Mac #1 and copy, not move, your iMovie project into it. Then move, the newly created library to an external drive (it can be a thumb drive) that is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled). The APFS format would work as well. Then plug the thumb drive into Mac #2 where you can access it or transfer it to the Mac #2 drive.

NOTE: The iMovie version on your Mac #2 must be the exact version as the iMovie version that was used to create the project on Mac #1. If the version is not exact, problems can occur that are not good. For example, you can inadvertently update your library so that the project will no longer play on your original Mac. Or, the project may not play at all on Mac #2.

Your Catalina operating system may not play the iMovie version that is on your Mac #1. Catalina should play up to iMovie version 10.1.14.

-- Rich

Hi, palmerfishman,

None of us on this consumer forum has any input into Apple's software designs or decisions. Updates can, indeed, be frustrating at times as we get used to the way things worked before. On the other hand, you choose the software that you use and whether you want to update it.

iCloud is designed to sync files like photos, documents, videos, etc, but not iMovie projects or libraries. iMovie projects just contain editing thumbnails and codes that point to the iMovie library to get assembled into a file, such as an exported movie. The projects in the libary are not playable, but just contain data. Here's a sample of what a typical iMovie project looks like in the iMovie library:

Therefore, you can sync the exported movie in the cloud, where everything has been assembled, but not the interim project that has not been assembled yet and is still in the editing phase. Not a technical explanation, but just my take on how it works.

-- Rich

You are very welcome. 😊

-- Rich