How Much Memory Does iMovie Need?

Question

How Much Memory Does iMovie Need?

I'm trying to use iMovie to put together a video that's about 26 minutes long. It won't let me. It says I don't have enough memory. I have 76 GB of space available on my laptop. When I hit cancel, a new box would immediately pop up saying I don't have enough memory. This happened every time I hit cancel. I had to quit iMovie to do anything else. When I opened it back up again, all the videos in my media window were gone. The videos in the timeline were left, but all the media videos were gone. Why is iMovie wanting so much space?

I have made dozens and dozens of videos using iMovie without encountering a problem with space before. All those other videos were 10 minutes long or shorter. I realize 26 minutes is more than two times longer than any other video I have done, but why would iMovie need so much space when there's 76 GB of space available?

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 14.1

Posted on Jan 20, 2025 9:14 AM

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Answer 1

Jan 20, 2025 9:44 AM in response to pasqualerose2

Is not specifically saying Memory and not storage space?

If it specifically saying memory, it is referring to RAM, not your storage space.

Check your RAM usage in Activity Monitor. There may not be enough free RAM to actually process the video.

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Answer 2

Jan 20, 2025 2:32 PM in response to pasqualerose2

Well, in that case, depending on the resolution of the video, it may be too big to fit in 75GB.

In any case, try restarting the Mac and trying again, see if that releases whatever is causing the storage issue.

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Answer 3

Jan 20, 2025 12:43 PM in response to Phil0124

OK. Now that I'm trying to actually make a video from what is in my iMovie, now it's talking about RAM, and that I don't have any application memory. I have never seen that before either. And I only have two other apps open, one being Safari, and the other, being Finder, which is always open.

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Answer 4

Jan 21, 2025 1:16 PM in response to Phil0124

So I tried to second make a post about this getting to the heart of the issue, but Apple in thier infinite wisdom thought it was too similar. I think it needs to be addressed in another thread, but Apple disagrees.

Here’s the latest. Yesterday I finished the video that was less than a half hour long. That video takes up just over 2 GB of space in a folder, but yet the total space on my computer dropped about 30 to 40 GB.

Today, I tried to make another video less than a half hour long. I got the video edited and put together, but when I try to output the video iMovie would not output it. When I checked my hard drive space, I had less than 1 GB left. It keeps dropping even though I'm no longer doing anything. Now the computer says I have 246 MBs left. When I started to put the second video together, I had 60 GB of space.

At 246 GB iMovie has made my computers pretty much useless. This is even after restarting it.

Where did all the space go? What is going on?

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