iMovie is the perfect tool for getting started with video editing. It's pretty robust for a consumer-level app, and the best part is it's free if you own a Mac. Once you've learned the basics of iMovie, you'll be ready to take your video to the next level and learn how to add music in iMovie. While iMovie does have some built-in jingles and a link to your iTunes library, for unique, royalty-free tunes you'll likely need to look elsewhere—like our music library.
Tap the video trimmer timeline at the bottom. You'll see a video timeline of your entire movie near the bottom half of your screen. Tapping will select the entire video clip, and outline it with yellow borders. Use this to add sound effects or voiceover audio that you want to connect to a specific video clip in your project, no matter where the clip is in the timeline. If you drag an audio file to the music well, indicated by the musical note icon in the timeline, the audio clip won't move if you move any video clips in the timeline. IMovie 10.0.7 Show Clip Trimmer and Show Precision Editor are grayed out - Answered by a verified Mac Support Specialist We use cookies to give you the best possible experience on our website. By continuing to use this site you consent to the use of cookies on your device as described in our cookie policy unless you have disabled them.
- When playing a clip in the browser, jump forward to the next clip. When playing a clip in the timeline, jump to the beginning of the current clip, or jump to the previous clip if the playhead is near the beginning of the current clip. Play the selected item full screen. Exit full-screen view.
- If you have long clips with several different scenes contained, you can split a clip in iMovie to get smaller ones. Of course, you can shorten a video to delete any video clip from the iMovie timeline. Step 1 Open the iMovie software on Mac. Click 'Project' 'Create New' 'Movie' to add a new iMovie project.
How to Import Music into iMovie
Across the top of the browser, you'll see different media types available to add to your iMovie projects such as My Media, Audio, and Titles. Any files—video and audio—imported from your computer will show up under the My Media tab. The audio tab is only for built-in sounds, Garageband files, and your iTunes Library. Import your file by clicking the downward arrow in the upper left corner of the window (highlighted in red below) and locating the file on your computer.
Under My Media, imported audio files will display as an audio waveform thumbnail. Hover the cursor over an audio clip and press the spacebar to listen to the file.
Adding Music to Your iMovie Project
Imovie Cutting Clips
To add the music track to your video, just drag it to your timeline.
Now your music track might be longer than your video. Keep in mind you can filter by track length in our music library, so it's possible to find a track that is a close or exact match to your video. Here though, we'll assume it's not an exact fit. If the track is pretty long, you may want to use the slider to zoom out on your timeline until you can see the end of the track. Now you can click and drag the end of the track until it aligns to the end of your video. You should see it 'snap' to the end when you're there. You may need to trim and adjust a few times to get it to lock in. If you cut it too short, you can extend it back out again. Similarly, if you don't want the music to begin right when the video begins, you can trim a little from the beginning. Learn more about how to cut music in iMovie.
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Fade in and Out to Prevent Abrupt Cuts
At this point, when you play back your project, the sound will stop at exactly the right time, but abruptly. We need a fade-out to prevent a sound cliff. Hover your cursor over the end of the audio track until you see a small dot appear. iMovie calls this a Fade Handle.
When you hover over the Fade Handle, your cursor will change to two triangles. Always note cursor changes in iMovie as a similar movement can have different results depending on slight changes in your cursor position. Drag the Fade Handle toward the center of the clip to adjust the duration of your fade. Fade Handles work at either end of any audio or video clip so you can fade the music both in and out.
Trimming Clips
So far we've assumed that you want to start your song right at the beginning of the track. But what if your video is only 15 seconds and the song doesn't pick up until the 30-second mark? While we can click and drag to trim the clip from the beginning the same way we did for the end, for a more precise cut here let's use the Clip Trimmer. Right-click your audio clip and choose Show Clip Trimmer.
The Clip Trimmer displays the clip in its entirety with the used section highlighted. Click and drag in the center of the highlighted portion to shift which section of the clip is used, while maintaining the overall duration of your music. Use the audio waveforms displayed as a visual for identifying the beginning of musical phrases. Press the spacebar to play back your project and click Close Clip Trimmer when you're all set. If the new beginning sounds a little harsh, use the Fade Handle to create a fade in to open your video.
Adding music is a great way to make your video project complete, and you don't need professional software to fit the music exactly how you want it. To go further with audio editing, check out this post. Practice makes perfect, and our audio library is filled with both music and sound effects to use in practice as well as large-scale productions.
Sometimes you just need to extract the certain clip instead of the whole video. iMovie is a popular video editing program for iOS and Mac users. You can edit videos in iMovie from the desktop, file-based cameras, iPhone, iPad and other connected digital devices. However, there are still many users looking for a detailed tutorial to cut video in iMovie.
If you have the same question about splitting videos in iMovie, you can get the complete how-to guide here.
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Part 1: How to Cut Video in iMovie on Mac
If you have long clips with several different scenes contained, you can split a clip in iMovie to get smaller ones. Of course, you can shorten a video to delete any video clip from the iMovie timeline.
Cut A Clip In Imovie
Step 1Open the iMovie software on Mac. Click 'Project' > 'Create New' > 'Movie' to add a new iMovie project.
Step 2Choose 'Import Media' from the 'File' drop-down menu. You can click 'Photo Library' followed by 'Album' to import a video clip from your Photo Library.
Step 3Choose the thumbnail of this video clip. Drag and drop it to the timeline.
Step 4Use your mouse to move the play-head to the target position.
Step 5Make your video clip selected. Click 'Modify' followed by 'Split Clip' to split videos on iMovie on Mac. Or you can use the shortcut to split clips in iMovie by pressing 'Command' and 'B' together.
Step 6Click 'Delete' to delete videos from iMovie if necessary.
Part 2: 2 Easy Ways to Cut a Clip on Windows and Mac
If editing videos in iMovie is still difficult for you, you can find an easy iMovie alternative to get the similar features. No matter you want to create a movie with various clips, or you just want to split a long video, you can get the satisfying result here.
Apeaksoft Slideshow Maker – Your Best iMovie Alternative
Compared with iMovie, Apeaksoft Slideshow Maker offers many pre-made themes, text, transitions, elements and filters. You can make a slideshow video for travel, wedding, party, Christmas and more with ease. What's more, you can customize the provided theme and add something new here by yourself.
The built-in video editor is also helpful. You can cut parts of a video with the custom duration. Later, you can merge any video clip into a new video with ease. Well, you can use the iMovie alternative to create a nice video with less time on PC.
- Cut a video clip to get the exact part by settings the start and end time.
- Rotate, mirror, crop, adjust video effects and make fast/slow motion within the video controller.
- Make your own movie with 10 ready-made slideshow themes and hundreds of customizable filters.
- Wide support of any video, audio and image formats.
Step 1Run the iMovie alternative for Windows. Click 'Add photo(s) and video(s) here' to import your video clips or pictures.
Step 2Choose your video. Click 'Edit' to get its video editor. You can find this icon from the picture below. Later, click 'Clip' to access the video trimmer.
Step 3You can play this video as usual. Then set the start time and end time by adjusting points or parameters. Click 'OK' to trim a video clip.
Step 4Choose one theme for your video. You can also add text/transition/filter/element effects to make a slideshow video. At last, click 'Export' to export your work.
Apeaksoft Video Converter Ultimate – Quickly Cut Out Parts of a Video
It is true that you can cut video in iMovie on MacBook and iOS devices. But if you want to split or merge videos only, there is no need to run iMovie. Because iMovie is not designed to work with some MP4 videos. You need to change to H.264 codecs before trimming video in iMovie.
How To Use Clip Trimmer In Imovie
By the way, iMovie requires high levels of HDD space. If you want to get a lightweight video editor and converter, Apeaksoft Video Converter ultimate can also be your smart choice.
- Cut parts of a video with any start and end time.
- Create a new clip by setting the custom starting point.
- Merge the selected clips into a long video file in sequence.
- Save the video clips to any formats without quality loss.
Step 1Open Video Converter Ultimate. How to insert picture on excel. Drag and drop your video into the main interface.
Step 2Click 'Trim' to get the built-in video cutter. Set the starting point with the blue bar. You can drag the circle bar to place where you want to split the video. Later, click 'Split' to split a video into two parts.
Step 3If you want to cut out parts of a video, you can set the start and end point by using the blue bar. Later, click 'OK' to cut out a video segment.
Step 4Set the output format from the 'Profile' list. Finally, click 'Convert' to save split clips.
Before that, you can use the 'Edit' button to crop, watermark, rotate, adjust effects for the videos.
Part 3:How to Cut Video in iMovie on iPhone and iPad
The built-in Photos app allows users to cut video clips. Well, you can also use iMovie to cut off top of video on iPhone and iPad. iMovie is available for iOS devices too.
Step 1Run the iMovie app. Tap 'Projects' > 'Create Project' to import the video you want to trim.
Step 2Slide the playhead to set the position where you want to split this video.
Step 3Tap the iMovie timeline to access the hidden filters. Choose the first icon from the right to left. It looks like a pair of scissors.
Step 4Tap 'Split' to split a video in iMovie on iPhone.
After trimming a clip, you can delete all extraneous parts of the clip. Later, you can combine several clips together to create a new video. That's all for how to cut video in iMovie on Mac, iPhone and iPad. If you have any other questions about iMove, you can feel free to contact us.
