iMovie '09 & iDVD: The Missing Manual

Deleting Footage for Good

When you mark a shot as a reject, iMovie generally hides it from you, so that you can spend less time wading through mountains of video as you build your project.

But marking shots as rejects has another payoff, too: It's the gateway to iMovie's video deletion feature. If a shot is really bad, and you're sure you'll never need it again, you can delete it from your Mac completely, thereby reclaiming a substantial amount of hard drive space.

iMovie '09 can even delete part of a clip on the hard drive, leaving the rest for you to work with. Technically speaking, that's quite a trick. (See the box on Space Saver.)

To purge your rejected clips and clip portions, do this:

1. Choose View → Rejected Only.

   As shown in Figure 4-6 (top), the Rejected Clips window appears. Skim or play these clips to double-check their worthlessness. The point is to review the rejects to make sure you're not about to nuke anything you'll regret losing.

   Note

   If you spot an orange stripe on any of these clips, then you've actually used that video in a project—you must have marked it as rejected afterward—and iMovie won't let you delete it. Remove it from your project first, or unmark it as a reject.

2. Click "Move Rejected to Trash".

   You'll find this button in the upper-right corner of the Rejected Clips window. iMovie immediately asks if you're sure (Figure 4-6, bottom).

   

   Figure 4-6. Top: The Rejected Clips window shows you everything you've indicated is destined for the cutting-room floor. Here's your last chance to look it over before deleting it forever. Bottom: When you click "Move Rejected to Trash", this confirmation box appears. Click "Move to Trash".

3. Click "Move to Trash".

   After a moment of processing, iMovie places all of the rejected footage in your Macintosh Trash. The filmstrips disappear from the window before you.

   Note

   At this point, the video isn't yet gone from your hard drive. You have one last, desperate chance to resurrect it. Click the Trash icon on your Dock, and then open the iMovie Temporary Items folder within. There you'll find both the deleted clip and the mini filmstrip movie thumbnail that iMovie '09 generated for it.

   To rescue some video, drag it out of this Trash folder and back into the appropriate folder in your Movies → iMovie Events folder. (Refresh your memory on how these folders work on Undeleting a Project.) The next time you open iMovie, you'll see it listed in the Event browser.

4. Empty your Macintosh Trash.

   In other words, switch to the Finder (click the first icon on your Dock), and choose Finder → Empty Trash. Or, if you can see the Trash icon on your Dock right now, hold down your cursor on it; from the shortcut menu, choose Empty Trash.