iMovie won't export project as Quicktime file - help salvaging it

October 31, 2022 6:40 AM

I have a project in iMovie 10.2.5 on a Mac running macOS 10.15.7, and I get the "missing media" error when I try to save my project as a QuickTime file - it will appear to let me go ahead and save it, but the file will be zero bytes, throw a "not compatible with QuickTime" error or occasionally an error that the export failed. The suggestions in this article didn't work for me. The project still plays in iMovie, but how can I salvage this video?
posted by Seeking Direction to Computers & Internet (2 answers total)

On my mac (running Monterey 12.6.1) the current version of iMovie is 10.3.5 (you have 10.2.5). 10.3.5 reportedly "includes stability and performance improvements".

Can you see if there's an update to iMovie?
posted by soylent00FF00 at 7:16 AM on October 31, 2022

When you work on a project in iMovie, it keeps the original movies and other source media separate from the project data. The project data includes information like which portions of the original movie to include, how to crop them, what transitions to use, etc It create temporary renderings to let you view and edit, but then when it is time to export, it grabs stuff from the actual source media for the highest quality.

It looks like it has lost track of that source media, so it can't do the export.

You might be able to right-click on an icon in the "project media" library and see if you can "Show in Finder". You might be able to reconnect the project to the original source movie, if you still have it. I'm not sure exactly what the steps would be, but that's the direction you want to go.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 8:54 AM on October 31, 2022 [1 favorite]