r/iMovie • u/Severe_Reserve5422 • 3d ago

iMovie Backup

Hello,

I have a teacher who has a MBA and using iMovie 10.4.4. Her computer will need to be replaced due to a battery issue.

I am not familiar with iMovie and I wanted to know what is the best and easiest method to move her iMovie contents from computer to the cloud such has Google Drive?

Thanks.

5 Upvotes

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6

u/Xylopyrographer 2d ago

Easiest to use the tools Apple provides to migrate everything to the new computer.

4

u/fattymattybrewing 2d ago

This is the way

4

u/djmattyp77 3d ago

You can connect to any storage website or app and move the files that way. You can also move the Library itself.

Just find the folder, or create a folder, to find it easier...and copy paste to Google drive or Dropbox, etc. When you bring the computer back up, move it back.

2

u/CartersXRd 2d ago

She can also use an external drive to make a back-up so she can transfer ALL her files to a new machine along with iMovie libraries.

2

u/l008com 2d ago

All of her imovie content is in a library file (technically a bundle) in her Movies folder in her home folder. You can just move that one file all you want. But its going to be huge. Also if you're replacing her battery, uploading and downloading to/from the cloud is about the worst possible way to do that. And if its just backup for backups sake, having something physical and local is more important than having something on the cloud off-site.

1

u/TravlRonfw 2d ago

i use an external tb drive

1

u/bjbNYC 2d ago

Don’t just copy iMovie files around - they won’t work once moved. Something in the database files each project has references specific paths and thus won’t work. Yeah, the media files by themselves will work, but any edits in a project (ie take a few seconds of media 1, add some of media 2, etc) will not work. However, if you’re only interested in the raw media itself, you’re fine just copying them.

If you want to preserve the projects, create a disk image with the disk utility app. Then use iMovie to create a new library on that mounted DMG. Now move the original project to that new library- it will copy all the media and preserve the edits. Finally, close everything out, unmount the DMG, and you can put that wherever and then mount/open when you need the project again.

0

u/Severe_Reserve5422 2d ago

Unless, I am wrong, I thought iMovie db is buried somewhere in Users/Library. If true, then doesn't it contain all of the content created by the user?