Is it safe to delete iMovie library file?

By Callum Stoneman, 22 February, 2019

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

Hi all,

I have recently started a website that includes video content, and these videos have been edited by my partner in iMovie on my Mac. The videos have been exported to MP4 once we have finished editing them so they are now their own file completely independent of iMovie, however my iMovie library file is now over 30GB in size and will only keep growing larger the more videos we record.

Once the videos have been exported, is it safe to remove the iMovie library file and start again? Would iMovie create itself a new blank library the next time it is launched, or is there a safer way to free up the space it is using?

Thanks for any help.

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Comments

By Peter Saathoff on Sunday, February 24, 2019 - 02:27

While deleting the iMovie library probably won’t mess anything up (I’ve done it before when one got corrupted) deleting individual projects is the standard way to do it. In the project view that has a grid of projects, there are little menu buttons next to each project, but they seem to be inaccessible to VoiceOver. However, if focus is on a project, typing command delete will delete the project from the library. Make sure to quit iMovie after deleting them to allow the library file to update. Hope that helps!