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iMovie is a free
video editing Video editing is the post-production and arrangement of video shots. To showcase excellent video editing to the public, video editors must be reasonable and ensure they have a thorough understanding of film, television, and other sorts of videog ...
application made by
Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...
for the
Mac Mac or MAC may refer to: Common meanings * Mac (computer), a line of personal computers made by Apple Inc. * Mackintosh, a raincoat made of rubberized cloth * Mac, a prefix to surnames derived from Gaelic languages * McIntosh (apple), a Canadi ...
, the
iPhone The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at ...
, and the
iPad The iPad is a brand of tablet computers developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple that run the company's mobile operating systems iOS and later iPadOS. The IPad (1st generation), first-generation iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010. ...
. It includes a range of video effects and tools like
color correction Color correction is a process used in stage lighting, photography, television, cinematography, and other disciplines, which uses color gels, or filters, to alter the overall color of the light. Typically the light color is measured on a scale k ...
and
image stabilization Image stabilization (IS) is a family of techniques that reduce motion blur, blurring associated with the motion of a camera or other imaging device during exposure (photography), exposure. Generally, it compensates for panning (camera), pan an ...
, but is designed to be accessible to users with little or no video editing experience. iMovie's professional equivalent is Apple's
Final Cut Pro X Final Cut Pro (often abbreviated FCP or FCPX) is a professional non-linear video-editing application initially developed by Macromedia, and, since 1998, by Apple as part of its pro apps collection. Final Cut Pro allows users to import, edit, a ...
. iMovie was originally released in 1999 for
Mac OS 8 Mac OS 8 is the eighth major release of the classic Mac OS operating system for Macintosh computers, released by Apple Computer on July 26, 1997. It includes the largest overhaul of the classic Mac OS experience since the release of System 7 ...
, and bundled with the iMac DV. With version 3, iMovie became part of Apple's now-defunct
iLife iLife is a discontinued software suite for macOS and iOS developed by Apple Inc. It consists of various programs for media creation, organization, editing and publishing. At various times, it included: iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD, iWeb, an ...
suite, alongside other multimedia apps. iMovie '08 was a complete rewrite, and lacked many of the features of previous versions, which returned in iMovie '09 and iMovie '11. The
iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...
version of iMovie came out in 2010. iMovie is pre-installed on all new Macs, iPhones, and iPads, and is free on the App Store.


History


iMovie (1999)

The first version of iMovie was released in 1999 as a
Mac OS 8 Mac OS 8 is the eighth major release of the classic Mac OS operating system for Macintosh computers, released by Apple Computer on July 26, 1997. It includes the largest overhaul of the classic Mac OS experience since the release of System 7 ...
application bundled with the first
FireWire IEEE 1394 is an interface standard for a serial bus for high-speed communications and isochronous real-time data transfer. It was developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s by Apple in cooperation with a number of companies, primarily Sony a ...
-enabled consumer Mac model, the iMac DV. Both iMovie and the iMac DV were announced at Apple's special event on October 5, 1999 at the Flint Center.


iMovie 2 (2001)

iMovie 2 added the ability to interleave video and audio tracks on the timeline.


iMovie 3 (2003)

iMovie 3 was plagued by performance issues and bugs.


iMovie 4 (2004)

iMovie 4 introduced nondestructive video editing. In prior versions of iMovie, trimming a clip removed the trimmed portion permanently. Beginning in version 4, iMovie introduced Direct Trimming, implementing editing functionality closer to professional-grade editing software.


iMovie HD 5 (2005)

Beginning with version 5, iMovie was renamed to iMovie HD, to highlight its new support for
HDV HDV is a format for recording of high-definition video on DV (video format), DV videocassette Videotape, tape. Conceived as an affordable high definition format for digital camcorders, HDV quickly caught on with many amateur and professional vi ...
(720p and 1080i)
camcorder A camcorder is a self-contained portable electronic device with video and recording as its primary function. It is typically equipped with an articulating screen mounted on the left side, a belt to facilitate holding on the right side, hot-sw ...
s. It gained features to integrate it with the rest of the
iLife iLife is a discontinued software suite for macOS and iOS developed by Apple Inc. It consists of various programs for media creation, organization, editing and publishing. At various times, it included: iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD, iWeb, an ...
suite, with toolbox buttons allowing the importing of images from
iPhoto iPhoto is a discontinued image editing software application developed by Apple Inc. for use on its Mac OS X operating system. It was included with every Mac computer from 2002 to 2015, when it was replaced with Apple's Photos application in ...
, music from
iTunes iTunes is a media player, media library, and mobile device management (MDM) utility developed by Apple. It is used to purchase, play, download and organize digital multimedia on personal computers running the macOS and Windows operating s ...
and the setting of chapter markers ready for exporting to
iDVD iDVD is a discontinued Mac (computer), Mac application made by Apple Inc., Apple, which can be used to DVD authoring, create DVDs. iDVD lets users design DVD menus (like a main menu and chapter selection menu) and burn movies, slideshows, and ...
. iMovie HD 5 imported MJPEG files as DV by default, which introduces noise; MJPEG files are cryptically lumped with "iSight" files in this version. It gained the "Magic iMovie" feature, which attempted to automate the whole process of video editing, by allowing a common transition to be added between scenes, a music track to be synchronised with the video and a
DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...
to be created with the accompanying iDVD software. Later versions added support for footage from
AVCHD AVCHD (Advanced Video Coding High Definition) is a file-based format for the digital recording and playback of high-definition video. It is H.264 and Dolby AC-3 packaged into the MPEG transport stream, with a set of constraints designed around cam ...
camcorders, and H.264-compressed video from
MPEG-4 MPEG-4 is a group of international standards for the compression of digital audio and visual data, multimedia systems, and file storage formats. It was originally introduced in late 1998 as a group of audio and video coding formats and related ...
or
QuickTime File Format QuickTime File Format (QTFF) is a computer file format used natively by the QuickTime framework. Design The format specifies a multimedia container file that contains one or more tracks, each of which stores a particular type of data: aud ...
files (.mov), as generated by a number of digital photo cameras with HD video recording feature. To facilitate this, iMovie includes the
Apple Intermediate Codec The Apple Intermediate Codec is a high-quality 8-bit 4:2:0 video codec used mainly as a less processor-intensive way of working with long- GOP MPEG-2 footage such as HDV. It is recommended for use with all HD workflows in Final Cut Express, iMovi ...
on the system as a
QuickTime QuickTime (or QuickTime Player) is an extensible multimedia architecture created by Apple, which supports playing, streaming, encoding, and transcoding a variety of digital media formats. The term ''QuickTime'' also refers to the QuickTime Pla ...
component. iMovie transcodes HD video upon import using this
codec A codec is a computer hardware or software component that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. ''Codec'' is a portmanteau of coder/decoder. In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder o ...
and stores it in the QuickTime file format.


iMovie HD 6 (2006)

iMovie 6 was released in January 2006 as part of the
iLife iLife is a discontinued software suite for macOS and iOS developed by Apple Inc. It consists of various programs for media creation, organization, editing and publishing. At various times, it included: iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD, iWeb, an ...
'06 suite, and was also originally optionally included with iLife '08 as a substitution for iMovie '08 (due to the new version's incompatibility with older Power PC Macintosh computers). However, this option was removed after iLife '09 was released. It was integrated with
iPhoto iPhoto is a discontinued image editing software application developed by Apple Inc. for use on its Mac OS X operating system. It was included with every Mac computer from 2002 to 2015, when it was replaced with Apple's Photos application in ...
,
iTunes iTunes is a media player, media library, and mobile device management (MDM) utility developed by Apple. It is used to purchase, play, download and organize digital multimedia on personal computers running the macOS and Windows operating s ...
,
iDVD iDVD is a discontinued Mac (computer), Mac application made by Apple Inc., Apple, which can be used to DVD authoring, create DVDs. iDVD lets users design DVD menus (like a main menu and chapter selection menu) and burn movies, slideshows, and ...
,
GarageBand GarageBand is a software application by Apple Inc., Apple for macOS, iPadOS, and iOS devices that allows users to create music or Podcast, podcasts. It is a lighter, amateur-oriented offshoot of Logic Pro. GarageBand was originally released for ...
and iWeb. iMovie HD 6 was designed for ease of use, and included new themes. Themes allow the user to drop movie clips or photos into professionally designed backdrops. Each theme included full-motion graphic bumpers and transitions. iMovie HD 6 also added real-time effects, which took advantage of the computer's graphics processing unit to perform some effects without rendering. It also introduced real-time titling, enhanced audio tools and effects, the ability to have multiple projects open at once, video podcasts and blogs (using integration with iWeb), and a refined look based on iTunes 5 and 6.


iMovie '08 (2007)

iMovie '08 (version 7.0) was released in August 2007 as a part of the iLife '08 suite. iMovie '08 was a complete redesign and rewrite of iMovie. It had much better HD output, and more formats to convert to. This was limited, however, by an undocumented restriction on supported codecs.
iPhoto iPhoto is a discontinued image editing software application developed by Apple Inc. for use on its Mac OS X operating system. It was included with every Mac computer from 2002 to 2015, when it was replaced with Apple's Photos application in ...
uses the QuickTime library and can create thumbnails for all
QuickTime QuickTime (or QuickTime Player) is an extensible multimedia architecture created by Apple, which supports playing, streaming, encoding, and transcoding a variety of digital media formats. The term ''QuickTime'' also refers to the QuickTime Pla ...
supported formats, but most of these cannot be used by iMovie '08. Some of the formats that iMovie '08 was able to import will not be recognized when they are added to an iPhoto library.
Motion JPEG Motion JPEG (M-JPEG or MJPEG) is a video compression format in which each video frame or interlaced field of a digital video sequence is compressed separately as a JPEG image. Originally developed for multimedia PC applications, Motion JPEG e ...
-encoded AVI files were recognized, and were the most common format used by digital cameras. A new feature called "skimming" for quickly previewing video in the library at a user controlled speed was added, and so was a feature that allows the user to highlight parts of video clips just like highlighting text. iMovie 08 also had the ability to add more than two layers of background sound, including multiple music, narration and sounds; previous versions could play multiple tracks but could display only two extra audio tracks. It included more exportation formats, including iPhone-sized video. It also supported non-tape-based HD video, such as
AVCHD AVCHD (Advanced Video Coding High Definition) is a file-based format for the digital recording and playback of high-definition video. It is H.264 and Dolby AC-3 packaged into the MPEG transport stream, with a set of constraints designed around cam ...
and footage from DVD and HDD camcorders. iMovie '08 also had the ability to export movies to the
YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
video sharing website. iMovie 08 was criticized due to its drastic abandonment of some iMovie HD 6 features. Former
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
reviewer
David Pogue David Welch Pogue (born March 9, 1963) is an American technology and science writer and TV presenter, and correspondent for ''CBS News Sunday Morning''. He has hosted 18 ''Nova'' specials on PBS, including '' Nova ScienceNow'', the ''Making Stu ...
said "iMovie '08 is an utter bafflement... incapable of the more sophisticated editing that the old iMovie made so enjoyable...All visual effects are gone — even basic options like slow motion, reverse motion, fast motion, and black-and-white. And you can't have more than one project open at a time." Features removed included the classic timeline, the ability to create DVD chapter markers, support for plugins, and in-timeline audio adjustment and control. iMovie '08 imported a much more limited set of video codecs and metadata formats than previous versions of iMovie or the then-current version QuickTime Player. For example, QuickTime Player could be extended to support the FLIP Video 3ivx MPEG-4 codec, but iMovie '08 could not. iMovie '08 also removed the ability to import DV footage. As a result, all resulting videos had
lossy compression In information technology, lossy compression or irreversible compression is the class of data compression methods that uses inexact approximations and partial data discarding to represent the content. These techniques are used to reduce data size ...
applied and there was no facility for managing full format video. The peculiar lack of QuickTime support means QuickTime Pro could edit a larger range of video than iMovie '08. Apple released iMovie HD 6 as a free download to those who had purchased iMovie '08. However, in response to the release of the subsequent newer version of iMovie '09, Apple removed the download in late January 2009 while also reducing the $299 price tag for
Final Cut Express Final Cut Express was a video editing software suite created by Apple Inc. It was the consumer version of Final Cut Pro and was designed for advanced editing of digital video as well as high-definition video, which was used by many amateur and pr ...
to $199. Several of the features removed from iMovie '08 that were previously included with iMovie HD 6 have been restored into iMovie '09 and, more recently, iMovie '11.


iMovie '09 (2009)

iMovie '09 (version 8.0) was released in January 2009 as part of the iLife '09 package. It introduced some new features and restored some features from previous versions of iMovie, including basic video effects (such as fast/slow motion and aged film) and image stabilization as well as travel map functions for marking locations where a video was shot. iMovie '09 also introduced simple implementations of more advanced features such as
picture-in-picture Picture-in-picture (PiP) is a feature that can be found in television receivers, personal computers, and smartphones. It consists of a video stream playing within an inset window, freeing the rest of the screen for other tasks. For televisions, ...
and Chroma keying. It also improved editing with a precision cut editor and a clip trimmer, improved support for hard drive-based cameras such as the Flip Mino, added some new titles and transitions, and added full iDVD support (which was unavailable in iMovie '08). In addition, it introduced a Full-Screen Library Browser with which the user can find and examine all of his or her video in one place.


iMovie '11 (2010)

iMovie '11 (version 9.0) was released on October 20, 2010, as part of the iLife '11 package. It has the ability to make trailers for home movies, more control over audio, instant replay and flash and hold effects, facial recognition, news themes, and the ability to watch the video on a Mac, iPad, iPhone/iPod touch, or Apple TV, as well as sharing on Facebook and YouTube. It now supports the AVCHD Lite format. Apple worked with
Abbey Road Studios Abbey Road Studios (formerly EMI Recording Studios) is a music recording studio at 3 Abbey Road, London, Abbey Road, St John's Wood, City of Westminster, London. It was established in November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of ...
in London, England, to bring original music/film scores to iMovie '11. The music is most notably used in the "trailers" feature provided by the software. On January 6, 2011, Apple made iMovie '11 (along with
Aperture In optics, the aperture of an optical system (including a system consisting of a single lens) is the hole or opening that primarily limits light propagated through the system. More specifically, the entrance pupil as the front side image o ...
, the
iWork iWork is an office suite of applications created by Apple Inc., Apple for its macOS, iPadOS, and iOS operating systems, and also available cross-platform through the iCloud website. iWork includes the presentation program, presentation applicat ...
suite, and the rest of the iLife suite) available on the newly-released
Mac App Store The Mac App Store (also known as the App Store) is a digital distribution platform for macOS apps, often referred to as Mac apps, created and maintained by Apple. The platform was announced on October 20, 2010, at Apple's "Back to the Mac" eve ...
. Prior versions of iMovie had the ability to split an event so that the unwanted portion of a long event could be deleted in order to save memory. This feature was removed in iMovie '11 and is no longer available in iMovie or Final Cut Pro X (FCPX). But in FCPX, as a workaround, you can cut out all but the desired part of a project, export that project in ProRes 422 format, and then import that export. This can be used as a smaller source clip instead of the original larger one.


iMovie 10.x (2013–present)

iMovie 10.0 was released on October 22, 2013, by
Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Comput ...
This version of iMovie was a complete redesign with more options to share a movie, more movie and trailer theme options from iMovie for iOS, easier to make picture-in-pictures, cutaways, side-by-sides etc., more realistic green-screen effects and easier refinements. Because it was not compatible with projects created with iMovie 9, upgrading to iMovie 10 did not replace the earlier version, but instead moved it to a folder where it could still be used. iMovie 10.1 was released on October 13, 2015. It added support for 4K video editing and included a major user interface overhaul, as well as the removal of some peripheral features. Later updates to iMovie 10.1 fixed bugs and made incremental changes. Versions 10.1.12 and 10.1.16 work on macOS Catalina 10.15.7. iMovie 10.2, released on November 12, 2020, became natively compatible with
Apple silicon Apple silicon is a series of system on a chip (SoC) and system in a package (SiP) processors designed by Apple Inc., mainly using the ARM architecture family, ARM architecture. They are used in nearly all of the company's devices including Mac ...
Macs, and added new backgrounds. Versions 10.2.3 and 10.2.5 work on macOS Catalina 10.15.7. iMovie 10.3 and later updates added support for Cinematic Mode, Magic Movie and Storyboard, and made performance improvements. Versions 10.3 and above require macOS 11 Big Sur. iMovie 10.4 was released on November 13, 2024, and improved on stability and performance features. Versions 10.4 and above require macOS Sonoma 14.6 or later, 4 Gigabytes of RAM, and 4.6 Gigabytes of disk space.


Features and capabilities

iMovie includes options to modify and enhance video color settings, crop and rotate of a video clip, stabilize shaky videos, add video transitions (such as fade, doorway, slide, swap, mosaic, cube, and page curls), and changing the speed (speed up or slow down) of clips. There are multi-clip video effects, such as creating a cutaway, using a green/blue screen to cut out a subject and replace the background with a different clip, creating a split-screen, and picture-in-picture effect. iMovie contains a large number of built-in sound effects, and also has the ability to record a voiceover or add a music soundtrack. It also has the ability to manipulate and enhance the audio of a project by reducing background noise and boosting audio levels of quiet clips. iMovie projects can export finished movies or clips to QuickTime file format (.mp4), or export single frames as JPEGs. With iMovie having versions on Apple's mobile and desktop operating systems Apple introduced a feature which allowed users to import iMovie projects from iOS to macOS. Similarly, if a project ends up requiring more advanced editing than iMovie can provide, iMovie projects can be imported in
Final Cut Pro X Final Cut Pro (often abbreviated FCP or FCPX) is a professional non-linear video-editing application initially developed by Macromedia, and, since 1998, by Apple as part of its pro apps collection. Final Cut Pro allows users to import, edit, a ...
.


Use cases


Trailers

iMovie allows for the creation of movie trailers through included templates. The trailers feature in iMovie allows for clips to be easily dropped into the timeline which consists of storyboard panes which have a label that lists which type of clip should be placed in each pane. The template also includes an outline for adding titles and credits to the trailer.


App previews

iMovie can be used to create app previews for use in Apple's App Store. App previews allow developers to give users a brief overview of an app through video rather than images.


Supported media formats

macOS Mojave macOS Mojave ( ; version 10.14) is the fifteenth major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s desktop operating system for Macintosh computers. Mojave was announced at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 4, 2018, and was released to the ...
is the last version of macOS to offer built-in compatibility with many older media
codec A codec is a computer hardware or software component that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. ''Codec'' is a portmanteau of coder/decoder. In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder o ...
s, including
RealVideo RealVideo, also spelled as Real Video, is a suite of proprietary format, proprietary video compression formats developed by RealNetworks — the specific format changes with the version. It was first released in 1997 and was at version 15. RealV ...
,
DivX DIVX (Digital Video Express) is a discontinued digital video format. Created in part by Circuit City, it was an unsuccessful attempt to create an alternative to video rental in the United States. The format's poor reception from consumers resu ...
, Sorenson 3, and FlashPix. Support for these codecs had been implemented in 32-bit macOS components, which Apple did not update to 64-bit, and removed entirely in
macOS Catalina macOS Catalina (version 10.15) is the sixteenth software versioning, major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s desktop operating system for Macintosh computers. It is the successor to macOS Mojave and was announced at WWDC 2019 on June 3, 2019 and ...
. In March 2019, seven months before Catalina's release, Apple released an iMovie update that notified users about the change, and automatically converted these older formats to newer codecs.


iOS and iPadOS version

At WWDC 2010,
Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American businessman, inventor, and investor best known for co-founding the technology company Apple Inc. Jobs was also the founder of NeXT and chairman and majority shareholder o ...
announced that iMovie would be released on iOS later that month, with the basic features of the Mac version. The first iPhone version was released on June 23, 2010 and was only compatible with the simultaneously-released
iPhone 4 The iPhone 4 is a smartphone that was developed and marketed by Apple Inc. It is the List of iPhone models, fourth generation of the iPhone lineup, succeeding the iPhone 3GS and preceding the iPhone 4s. Following a number of notable leaks, ...
, the first iPhone that could record HD video. It was released for the iPad on March 11, 2011, to coincide with the release of the
iPad 2 The iPad 2 is a tablet computer, tablet developed and marketed by Apple Inc. Compared to IPad (1st generation), the first iPad, as the second model in the iPad line, it gained a faster multi-core processor, dual core Apple A5, A5 processor, a ...
. iMovie gained support for 4K resolution in version 2.2, switched to using the
Metal A metal () is a material that, when polished or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electrical resistivity and conductivity, electricity and thermal conductivity, heat relatively well. These properties are all associated wit ...
graphics
API An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build ...
in version 2.2.5, external displays in version 2.2.6, and green screen effects in version 2.2.7. iMovie 3, released in April 2022, gained pre-made templates, called Storyboards, to simplify the movie creation process, and the Magic Movie feature, which automatically adds transitions to clips and combines them into a finished video.


See also

*
Comparison of video editing software This is a comparison of non-linear video editing software applications. See also a more complete list of video editing software. General information This table gives basic general information about the different editors: Active Discontin ...


References


Books

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Print

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External links

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Official list of formats supported by iMovie
{{DEFAULTSORT:Imovie Video editing software for macOS MacOS-only software made by Apple Inc. IOS-based software made by Apple Inc. IOS software Freeware Mobile video editing software