iMovie App Reviews
Files are defaulting to mpg.4 export. Looks crappie on youtube. Under share option -> Fille -> only option is HD or SD 1080 or 720. No quicktime export available.... am I missing something?
Does it even work?
This is either most counter-intuitive program on earth or it is simply broke. Is this still supported or was it pulled from life support?
Bring us capcut like features please
This version has no updates
Apple seriously has gone downhill
Do you all even test software anymore? 26 is the worst platform software ever released. Nothing works and everything is buggy. 2026 the year Beta testers were eliminated and replaced by general public
No 4K in 2026?
This app is garbage
Minimalist way
Simplest way to make videos.
Destroys source media
Loaded a video from my iCloud library. It performed destructive actions on the source file with no way to recover. Apple’s backup system failed in every way possible to provide a recoverable file. Memories captured, completely ruined by garbage iMovie, Time Machine providing absolutely zero value in a backup either.
Omg this good
So I’ve been using iMovie for fun, but it’s been really fun and easy, pretty much everything is self-explanitory and I don’t have a hard time navigating the interface. I started off thinking “ill use it once and forget about it” but now every Saturday I make, like, 3 vids or trailers so I think people should get it if they’re looking for something fun and easy, but for social media I would use caput or inshot.
no ai features
no ai features
Great
easy to use fun Ive been using it for like 3 years or something if you want it get it baby
Not Working
On mobile, this app works just fine. On macOS, however, barely anything works at all. It won’t let me export ANY of my photos/videos, and when they appear in my movie, they are just one big long image. The sound doesn’t work either, and it took 15 minutes to download the 4gb app with 500mbps ethernet. (UPDATE:) It won’t even let me close the app because it has to finish downloading the 1 hour long image.
Yessssssssss
I wuv dis
Kinda works
WHEN I HACKED MY MAC TO RUN MACOS SEQUOIA, IT WORKED. WHEN MY MAC IS NO MACOS CATALINA, DOES NTO WORK
Great app
It does the job FOR FREE and the way you can edit your videos from YouTube to your phone you can literally edit from your iPhone or Mac love it thank y’all so much
This is great for rookies
iMovie, Canva, Are Both Great! For basic use like quick cuts. But once your master iMovie, you should switch to cap, cut then premier pro
Cannot import from iOS, no Magic Movie
This is a great free option for people looking to get into video editing. But why does my iPhone have an option in iOS iMovie to export to edit on my Mac when the Mac app doesn’t even support the file type? On the same note, the Mac app should have Magic Movie mode to quickly create videos; this runs on much more powerful hardware than my iPhone, but only the iPhone has that feature? All said, this Mac app needs real updates to become a well-rounded piece of software as you’d expect from Apple.
Vertical Video???
Don’t understand how Apple has created a dinosaur by not integrating an automatic vertical video setting, for the amount of social media videos being created. I use FCPX but, seems Apple is alienating 90% of of a demographic. That percentage may be incorrect, but you know 86.75% of statistics are made up.
doesn't work
I literally can't even use it anymore I'm so aggravated
Great for bigginners
iMovie is okay, but it’s missing a lot of features such as: 1. You can only have 2 thing in the time line 2. Not censor effects 3. No right side bar 4. No way to make a clip smaller 5. Limited titles 6. You can only export 1080p video
Great for personal use. Good starter for small business, but not for scaling your video production
I have accomplished a lot with iMovie, but have now outgrown it. It performs well and almost never crashes. UX is clunky in places. Example, placing objects on the timeline has some strange limitations about how they attach. Captions are extremely limited, as you are stuck with their formats and screen placement. Cropping features are good. Audio overlays work pretty well. I don’t use it for any special effects, so no opinion there. Recently I had a freelancer do some work in iMovie. He had a newer version (by only one point release) and so project files were useless until I do a MacOS upgrade. Kind of frustrating as my current is not that old. Some freelancers do not use iMovie, so that limits the talent pool. I will be upgrading to Final Cut Pro this weekend to better address my business needs. It remains to be seen if and how current projects in iMovie will port over to FCP. And, of course, it is free with the Mac. So overall, I am satisfied.
I love this stuff!
I love IMovie because it gives me the chance to have freedom because I am getting hunted down by the world government (I’m hallucinating)
ITS AMAZING
YOU CAN MAKE FREE MOVIES YAYYYY!!!!!!!!!
Failure of an App
iMovie has one job: produce a video file. It cannot do this, and it will not tell you it has failed. I edited 45 minutes of footage into a 35-minute video. When I hit export, the app simply did nothing — no file produced, no error message, no warning, no indication of any kind that anything had gone wrong. The export silently failed and iMovie returned me to the timeline as if I had never asked. This is the worst possible failure mode for editing software. A loud, ugly error message would have at least told me to troubleshoot, change formats, or move my project elsewhere before I sank more hours into it. Instead, iMovie pretends everything is fine while quietly refusing to do the one thing it exists to do. My finished video is now permanently stranded inside the application, unwatchable by anyone who doesn't have my Mac. If you are considering iMovie for anything you actually care about: don't. Use literally any other editor that will at least have the decency to tell you when it has broken.
Seriously, why is Apple software so bad?
I find it astonishing that Apple doesn’t simply sit down and watch users using the software. If they did, they would immediately see how the “ecosystem” of files, libraries, cloud, etc. is just insanely confusing. Functionality that should be easy to find isn’t. Adding text, transitions, etc… it should all (in 2026) work flawlessly and be intuitive. Instead Apple still makes little buttons with meaningless images on them, provides the strangest idioms for naming, importing and just USING “projects”, etc. It’s free, so I gave it an extra star.
New update ruined what was once easy
I used to be able to select a bunch of images I imported, like 1k images, and change both their time and image size with relative ease. EVER SINCE AN UPDATE HAPPENED I NOW HAVE TO SELECT A SMALL AMOUNT OF IMAGES AND CHANGE THEM INDIVIDUALLY MAKING WHAT WAS ONCE AN EASY PROCESS A LONGER MUCH MORE ANNOYING ONE. AND IF I DO SELECT EVERYTHING AND TRY TO CHANGE THE SIZE OF THE IMAGE, IT CAUSES THE SOFTWARE TO STOP RESPONDING. SO WHOEVER MADE THIS UPDATE REVERT IT BACK.
Add MPEG-4 Support
Disappointing it doesn’t support newer codecs.
Is good but missing a lot
I like that there is a free editor but it lacks 9:16 format. I have FCP and DaVinci but at times Id like to just open a light editor to do small projects like shorts or IG posts which are 9:16. Today I would say 75% of the people including my kids are looking to do only shorts, reels, or IG. Please add this 9:16 aspect ratio.
Video Integrity- Amateur Editor
So, a very unfortunate issue is occurring, and it is a newish issue. I have been using iMovie for years but it seems there may be an issue with videos recorded on a 17ProMax. Here is the issue that I have noticed ever since I got the worst iPhone in Apple History: I record a video using my 17 Pro Max. I edit the video in the Photos App on my iPhone. The edits are simple; trim, crop, or color correct (or all of the above.) The video looks stunning. I open my iMovie app on my 2025 MacBook Air M4 and select the videos in iMovie, the ORIGINALS of the videos are what’s importing… Apple Support told me this is normal and if I want to make edits then I need to just use the features of the iMovie app. You know who doesn’t have this issue? Adobe Premier Pro- unfortunately that app is a little too advanced for me. But this issue I am having only started when I got the terrible iPhone 17 Pro Max.
iMovie is best
imovie I think is better than capcut becase it is way better quality. Some may think that capcut can do cooler things, but iMovie looks more professional. Capcut feels like its just for social media, and usually social media videos aren't that good quality.
Its more better on the Mac than the iPad
The app is really good! But I would’ve give 5 stars if it had more effects, and stuff to use for your videos. And also the best thing is that it’s free, you don’t pay for it! And it should always be like that! To me iMovie is probably best on the Mac. Ive seen how’s was the app on the iPad and the phone, and in the Mac it’s easier to bring videos and etc, on the Mac. But the only request I have is to have more effects on iMovie like I said before. The rest is perfect!
good but
Some video files need to be converted for iMovie to work, or else it crashes instantly on importing. Those files are previewed normal in Fiinder…
Excellent
This app is the right app for me. Although I’m still working on figuring it out, but it is really easy to learn! I hope you add more features and improve.
Go to app, that has gone wrong
I love iMovie, I really do. It has been a go-to for most basic video editing for many years. Amazing for a “free”product. But with the advent of the new “pay for features” model of all of Apple’s formerly completely-free apps, including the iMovie push to upgrade/pay for Final Cut features, bugs were also introduced - bugs that now cause spinning ball hangs that can only be “fixed” via force quitting iMovie. I’ve been through some historic efforts to troubleshoot… and best I can tell, it is the app itself that is just choking (on files that it has never choked on before). Final step I am working on now is a complete, deep uninstall of the app and re-downloading. I may lose files… I hope not.
awesome
i love this app helpful for my videos
Does NOT upload all videos!
Can’t get all of my videos to upload from my iPhone. This app is useless if it leaves out videos. Please help!
Wow this is so good!
Wow this app is SOOO Good, I really mean it! My reviews keep vanishing so I’m 100% sure there’s no filter for reviewing Apple’s own apps or anything. I love when this app crashes!
No BPM setting or sync...wack
unusable for music videos
ADS IN iMovie?!?!?!
Why do you have to ruin everything now. The Creator Studio ad isn’t even the first ad in here. There was an ad for Final Cut Pro before. Now for the evil and ought right horrendous Creator Studio. I hate modern Apple and if there is an afterlife, I want Steve to throw a Saturnian lightning bolt to Apple Park. Like Zeus but Lightning from Saturn is the strongest in the entire solar system.
Removed features. Makes me want to tear my hair out.
Common sense features, like text boxes, are absent. It took several apple support staff to tell me text boxes were removed in a recent update. the whole app in general is a nightmare to use. The only reason I will use it moving forward is that it is free to use, but at what cost? my sanity.
Deleted 10 hours of work
When I was editing a video for my Chanel, it said ran out of storage and with no warning deleted my entire file, 10 hours of my life gone. I hate this app
What happened?
The most recent update has left me speechless. iMove used to do everything I needed for my video podcast. It was quick, responsive, and I didn’t have any issues. Now, exporting is taking twice as long as before (the prior version would do my 4+ hour podcast in about 35 minutes, now it is taking over an hour to do the same export), and the later parts of reviewing the video is making the video jittery. I don’t know if this is a iMovie viewing problem, or if the exported video will do the same thing. I really hope that I don’t have to use some other software for this, I had a pretty simple workflow for what I was doing. UPDATE: So I have been trying *ALL DAY* from about 10 AM this morning and it is currently 8:20 PM at night to export to a file a 3 hour, 31 minute, 57 second file. There is no way possible that this is the desired speed for file creation. I am *REDUCING* my rating because iMovie *WAS* working just fine! I could produce a 5 hour movie and it would be done in about an hour. There is no way this is how iMovie should be behaving.
A little too simplified
Doesn’t let you change aspect ratio?
Good but is hard to use
So I like the app but its just doesn’t give you instructions of how to use it and it hard to add picketers in the app. I like it but hard to understand
It is great for beginners
I started making videos a year ago and this helped me get started. It was free and easy to learn. It really helped! Thanks apple!
iMovie now has ads? ugh
Ugh… aside from the UX not having been updated in ages… it now has ads to get the new Final Cut Pro through Apple Creator Studio. When did Apple become Microsoft? I’m done using iMovie.
Media Processing Software
Complete in meeting my needs. If I ever need more, then I will purchase Final Cut Software.
Latest update is trash
Exporting a 50s clip in 4k and imovie is stuck forever. Rebooting my macbook pro doesn’t help.
stupid
you can't import videos from photos
Easy to use, extremely glitchy
This is user friendly and has basic capabilities, but constantly freezes and crashes regardless of the file etc. Really difficult to edit when I am constantly restarting the app. Worth paying for something that actually works.
What happened?
Been using iMovie for years. Recently it’s freezing every time I make an edit. Why am I having to force quit several times to edit a 5 min video?