2005 iMovie project in 2020

October 28, 2020 8:14 AM

I have an old iMovie project that I made in 2005 and haven't touched since. I have access to a Mac again, and I'd like to import that into my iMovie 10.1.16, but iMovie doesn't seem to recognize the project - it just treats it as a set of folders. Is there a way to do this? I've read a few guides but none of them seem to address this issue.

Why? It's not critically important that I get this into iMovie, but I noticed that the video (m4v) I exported from the project back in 2005 is missing some audio that made it into the DVD version, so I'd like to export another video with the audio added in. If I can't load the iMovie project I'll just try ripping from DVD or loading the exported video and the missing audio in Shotcut to manually add the audio back in, but since I think the work is already done in iMovie I'd rather just use that already-finished product.

When I look at the project's folder, I see:

📁myProjectName
|-📁myProjectName.iMovieProject
|--📁Audio Waveforms
|--📁Cache
|--📁Media
|--📁Shared Movies
|--myProjectName.iMovieProject
|--myProjectName.dvdproj

And a bunch of other files.

posted by Tehhund to Computers & Internet (2 answers total)

Try using an older version of Imovie like version 9. Make a fresh copy of the files for importing - the process might be destructive.
posted by zenon at 9:07 AM on October 28, 2020 [1 favorite]

Just this morning, the reputable Mac community site Macintouch posted this:

Retroactive is a remarkable project and Mac app from Tyshawn Cormier that experiments with modifying (“unlocking”) essential apps that Apple abandoned, allowing them to run on newer Mac systems.

Run Aperture, iPhoto, and iTunes on macOS Big Sur and macOS Catalina. Xcode 11.7 on macOS Mojave. Final Cut Pro 7, Logic Pro 9, and iWork ’09 on macOS Mojave or macOS High Sierra.

Much more detail on Macintouch. I have not tried this, but plan to.
posted by conscious matter at 9:43 AM on October 28, 2020 [5 favorites]