New Media Station Documentation - Saving Your Project

Like working with most other programs, you must save your iMovie project! Using the Save Project item from the File menu from time to time will assure that you do not lose you work if there is a crash or other problem.

iMovie saves your project as a folder that contains several sub-folders and files. For example, there is a Media folder in your project folder that contains all of your raw video and audio clips. There may also be a QuickTime .mov file in the project folder that is a preview of the project. Note that while these files can be opened and copied separate from the entire project, you should not rename themn or move them out of the project folder as it may render the iMovie project itself damaged or useless.

Recall that from when you started your project by importing video, you saved your work in the /Temporary Storage folder of the computer's local hard drive.

If you save your project and return to work on it again another time, you do have to return to this specific computer as it is the only one that has your project.

Backups are always a good idea, but unfortunately, the large size of DV means there are not many good options available. An iMovie project folder can easily be larger than will fit on a single data CD or, even, DVD. Academic Computing Systems continues to investigate possible solutions to this problem. If you really want to have a backup, about the only option currently is to purchase an external USB 2.0 or Firewire hard drive that you can connect to the computer to make a copy of your work. These hard drives, however, usually cost several hundred dollars.

Note that the /Temporary Storage folder is accessible by other users of the machine. The security on the computer, however, does prevent other users from changing or deleting your projects. The do have the ability to open them and view the files. Please keep this in mind.

Since you are the only one, aside from the Academic Computing Systems staff, who can delete your project. We do reqeust that you remove your project files from the /Temporary Storage folder when your project is completed to free up disk space for other users. The ACS staff will clear out project files from the /Temporary Storage folder at the end of every semester. If the hard drive gets filled during the semester, projects older than 1 month may be deleted.