Table of Contents
What does it mean when iMovie says “iMovie Not Enough Disk Space””? As the error message says, it can happen when your Mac’s startup disk is nearly full. The app iMovie makes a lot of temporary and cache files that take up a lot of space. It may also not have enough space because it needs to be updated.
iMovie usually needs at least 25GB of storage space to work well. If your Mac only came with a 128GB or 256GB SSD or hard drive when you bought it, iMovie will quickly fill it up. And if there isn’t enough space on your computer for your project, iMovie will show you the “iMovie not enough disk space” error message.
(Solved)”iMovie Not Enough Disk Space” on Mac
Manage Space on your Mac
If you still don’t have enough space on your Mac after trying the above steps, you can try a few other things to free up space. Even though iMovie doesn’t take up much space, your Mac can fill up with other programs and useless files.
A Mac cleaner app like CleanMyMac X is the easiest way to get rid of files that aren’t needed on your computer. To start using the app, just download and install it. At start-up, the app will offer to run a scan to find and get rid of junk files.
Get rid of Projects from the iMovie Library
That is, iMovie can take up space if you have a lot of events and projects going at once. To fix these iMovie storage problems, open the program and go to the “All Projects” section on the sidebar. Here, you can look at the projects that are available and right-click on the one you want to get rid of.
Click “Move to Trash” to get rid of the iMovie project from the program. You can do the same thing in the Events section to make the best use of iMovie’s memory.
Delete Render Files on iMovie
- At first, just launch the iMovie application on your Mac and go to its Menu > iMovie > Preferences
- As the Preferences window in iMovie would be launched, look for the “Render Files” segment and click on the “Delete” button.
- Simply confirm the action to delete render files in iMovie and wait for the process would be completed.
- Alternatively, you can also launch Finder and go to the ~/Movies/ folder to manually delete the “Render Files” folder from Mac.
Reinstall the iMovie App on Your Mac
- To learn how to free up space on iMovie, just launch Finder > Applications and get a list of the installed apps.
- From here, select the iMovie app, right-click, and choose to move it to the Trash to uninstall it.
- Once the iMovie app is uninstalled, you can manually go to the ~Library folder and browse folders like Preferences, Caches, Container, and Application Support. You can now manually remove any iMovie-related data from these folders.
- After uninstalling iMovie and removing its data, you can restart your Mac. Later, you can go to the App Store on Mac and install the iMovie app on it again.
Manage the Storage and Resources on Your Mac
- Go to the desktop on your Mac and click on the Apple icon from the top to select the “About This Mac” option.
- This will open dedicated options related to your Mac. You can check the “Storage” tab to view how much space is available or occupied.
- Now, click on the “Manage” button under the Storage tab to get numerous options to manage your Mac’s storage.
- From here, you can choose to empty the Trash on your Mac, optimize its storage, and even reduce its clutter.
Clear out the iMovie Library Package Files
- Package files can build up in your iMovie library, primarily if you use the program to work on many projects. Clearing these out can help you regain some space.
- To get started, open Finder on your Mac and select Go from the options at the top of the screen. From here, select Go to Folder.
Reasons Behind the Not Enough Disk Space Error in iMovie
The main reason you get the “not enough disk space” error is that your disk is full or almost full. Even though iMovie isn’t a very big program, you need at least 25GB of free space for it to work. When you make videos with iMovie, it makes a lot of cache files and temporary files on your Mac.
But that might not be true. There are also people who say that iMovie will still say there isn’t enough disk space even if there is enough free space. In this case, you may need to check for iMovie updates and update it to the most recent version.
FAQ
How do I free up disk space on iMovie Mac?
To clean up the iMovie disk space, remove the unwanted files. These files may include iMovie caches, junk files, useless iMovie clips, Trash files, and other unnecessary files and applications. You can manually find and delete such files in the Finder option
Why is my iMovie taking up so much space?
To edit a movie, iMovie transcodes the clips into a format that is suitable for editing but is extraordinarily large in size. Also, files such as render files are created during the editing. That’s why iMovie usually takes up a few or even more than 100GB of space.