Split Master Clips Into Separate Scenes

Once you have imported video into iMovie, it is helpful to title and organize the different clips. This will save hard drive space, keep your project more orderly, and will make it easier to find what you are looking for.

If you imported from the camera, you will often have long clips that contain several different scenes. Begin by splitting these large clips into several smaller ones, each containing just a single scene.

Move the playhead to the first frame of the new scene, and click Edit > Split Video Clip at Playhead, or, use the keyboard shortcut Apple + T. This will split the original clip into two separate scenes.

Split or Crop Unusable Footage

Often, you will have a lot of video footage that is shaky, out of focus, or, for some other reason, unusable. It’s best to trash this footage so that it doesn’t clutter up your project.

There are two methods for separating the usable and unusable footage. You can split the clips (using the method outlined in step 1). This is the way to go if the part that you don’t want to use is at the beginning or end of clip.

If you only want to separate a piece of video in the middle of a clip from the rest of the scene, use the markers underneath the playhead. Drag these markers to highlight the portion of video that you want to isolate. The selected portion will be marked in yellow.

If you want to use only this selected portion, click Edit > Crop, or use the keyboard shortcut Apple + K. This will keep the portion of the clip highlighted in yellow, and delete the rest.

If you want to delete the portion highlighted in yellow and keep the rest of the clip, click delete. This will delete the yellow portion, and keep the parts before and after as separate clips.

NOTE: Any video that is deleted through either of the methods outlined in this step will disappear for good. It will not show up in the trash bin, and if you decide later that you want to use it, you will need to re-import it to the project.

Trash Unwanted Clips

After separating the usable and unusable footage , send the clips that you don’t want to the trash. Just select the clips you want to get rid of, and click delete. The trash icon, in the bottom right corner of the screen, will indicate how much space is being taken up by the trashed files.

If you have plenty of space on your hard drive, it’s wise to keep the clips in the trash, in case you decide that you want to use them later.

However, if you’re certain you’ll never use them, you can empty the trash and free up the space on your hard drive.

Empty the Trash

Before you empty the trash, it’s a good idea to double-check what you are deleting. You can view the contents of the trash bin by clicking File > Show Trash…, by using the keyboard shortcut Apple + Shift + T, or by clicking directly on the trash can.

This will open a separate window, which displays all of the video clips in the trash and even allows you to watch them before deleting them for good.

You can empty the entire trash bin by clicking Empty Trash… (keyboard shortcut: Shift + Apple + Delete), or just delete certain clips by selecting them and clicking Delete Selected Clip…

Now, your project should only consist of the clips that you are planning to use. Give these clips specific titles so that it is easy to identify them and find what you are looking for.

To rename a clip, double-click on it. This will open up the Clip Info box. Delete the entry in the Name: field and replace it with a title that more accurately describes the contents of the clip.

Now that your clips are cleaned up and organized, it’s much easier to put them in order and create your video project.