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Find Videos in iPhoto

The Mac OS X iPhoto application can be used to catalogue videos as well as photos, and I know I have a lot of videos in amongst my 20,000-odd photos. But how to find them? Create a “Smart Album” with the criteria “Photo is Movie” (which seems to violate basic rules of physics, but it’s how it works):

An iPhoto Smart Album that includes all my videos

Friday, February 20, 2009 - 5:00pm
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Comments

x's picture
x on June 27, 2009
Thanx a lot ! I just search for a day how to to this ! x
Ashleigh Rohde's picture
Ashleigh Rohde on November 3, 2011

THanks so much!!! That took 2 seconds! and then I made an album that was "photos - is not - movies" so that I have all my photos on one place as well! Thanks!!!

Jonathan Franzone's picture
Jonathan Franzone on July 4, 2009
What version of iPhoto is that in? I am running iPhoto version 6.0.6 and I don’t have a Photo option in the left hand drop-down box. Kind of depressing because I was really wanting to have an easy way to catalogue all of my video files.
Anonymous's picture
Anonymous on August 11, 2009
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
Siggi's picture
Siggi on November 30, 2009
Thanks! finely!
Philip's picture
Philip on April 4, 2010
OF COURSE… a movie is nothing but a bunch of photos, just as the internet is a bunch of tubes. Thanks for figuring that one out.
Steve L's picture
Steve L on August 20, 2010

Just what I needed. Thank you very much!

Vedavyas's picture
Vedavyas on September 7, 2010

nice post

Scott in Wisocnsin's picture
Scott in Wisocnsin on September 18, 2010

whew- you saved me like 1 hour of mindless pegging after our 7000 photo trip to Italy. THANK YOU!!!!

Shahzad Khan's picture
Shahzad Khan on November 3, 2010

Hey thanks a bunch, you helped me move 100 GBs of videos out of iPhoto :)

Chris1983dx11's picture
Chris1983dx11 on December 12, 2010
if you set iphoto options to sort as : by keyword. It will separate your photos and videos in every Event in iphoto. As long as your photos and videos do NOT have keywords that you typed in personally, Each event will display your photos first and then at the end of your “Event” the videos in that section will be at the bottom.
Lipi Bagshaw's picture
Lipi Bagshaw on February 28, 2011
Thank you so much - great help!!!
Michael Kessel's picture
Michael Kessel on August 11, 2011
Very Helpful - Thanks!
waz's picture
waz on August 31, 2011
can I use the word “Love”? i love you man
JOSE MAGNO's picture
JOSE MAGNO on September 2, 2011
THANKS A MILLION!!!!WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO PEOPLE LIKE US(NOT TECH SAVVY)IF SOMEONE LIKE YOU IS NOT AROUND.YOU JUST SAVED ME FROM A MIGRAINE!!!
shaan deen's picture
shaan deen on September 9, 2011
actually this was AWESOME to find. you solved it so simply. exactly what i wanted and i’ve saved COUNTLESS needless hours.. big thank you. ps. i’m using lion and iPhoto 11.
Eric Townsend's picture
Eric Townsend on September 13, 2011
I consider myself as quite savvy, but I’ve missed out on this for years. So big thanks.
Iain Ferguson's picture
Iain Ferguson on October 8, 2011
Yet another thanks for pointing this out to me. Was able to quickly find out the total size of Videos and Raw photos in my iPhoto Library. Not as much as I thought :-)
Andy's picture
Andy on November 16, 2011

Thank you for that wonderful tip.  Just spent all evening watching all the videos we took of our baby who was born 15 weeks premature - he came home a year ago today and is now doing great.  I'd always had to search through 'events' to find them.

Franx's picture
Franx on November 17, 2011

Thanks a whole lot!

Ab's picture
Ab on November 26, 2011

THANK YOU!!!

Saved MUCHO TIME!

Michaek's picture
Michaek on December 3, 2011

Man! I've been looking for this solution for ages!! Thank you a million times over!!!

newmacuser's picture
newmacuser on December 4, 2011

awesome !!! thanks loads

Ellen's picture
Ellen on December 10, 2011

So easy, thank you!

Glen 's picture
Glen on December 25, 2011
You rock! Thanks for this brilliant suggestion!
Paul W's picture
Paul W on December 28, 2011
Thanks so much for this - really easy when you know how!
ali's picture
ali on February 21, 2012
um, you RULE! thank you, thank you.
Jorge Gonzalez's picture
Jorge Gonzalez on February 29, 2012

How can I know the disk location.  Fo rsome reason they do not appear in iMovie and I need to transfer them.  Thanks

Colin's picture
Colin on March 10, 2012

Good job, thanks!  

But, does anyone know how i can get the videos to Apple TV2 ??  I can get the photos on TV2 okay but the videos don’t show up.  They are MJPEG on iPhoto, & if i drop one to the desktop it becomes an AVI.  I have ‘include videos’ selected on iTunes ‘Advanced’ > Choose Photos to Share’ but it makes no difference (I can get Movies ok) …. can’t drop these MPJEG or AVI  files into iTunes.

 

Glen's picture
Glen on May 29, 2012

The way I do it, which I hope isn't the only way, b/c IMO apple should have the Atv2 intuitively pick up all video when u have home sharing turned on in iTunes, is to drag the movies into "movies" under iTunes. Then, when I pull up "movies" under "computers" on the atv2 it has them mixed in. Like I said, this can't possibly be the way it's supposed to be done, but it works. If anyone has an automatic way, please share ;)

Steven Campbell's picture
Steven Campbell on March 15, 2012

Thanks so much! This was driving me crazy.

Chick's picture
Chick on March 21, 2012

Wow!! You just saved me a ridiculous amount of time, I could kiss you!!!

Corey Jones's picture
Corey Jones on April 18, 2012

So this is totally a shameless plug for my app, but if you want a more full featured experience with the videos stored in iPhoto, check out iPv. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ipv/id514793265?mt=12 . Here are a few free promo codes for a few lucky folks. 73WFMRNJJEP3, NL3WYXYJA73P, KFMLR9LWRF3R.

Billy B's picture
Billy B on May 8, 2012

Thanks! Much appreciated!!!

Pat's picture
Pat on May 29, 2012

Grazie!! The only Mac task that was easy tonight!!

Louise's picture
Louise on May 31, 2012

Thanks a lot!! Now does anyone know how to find and erase any duplets in movíes?

Luca 's picture
Luca on June 5, 2012

Genius! A pity you're not the first google entry. Thanks a lot!

Eri's picture
Eri on June 29, 2012

Thank you!!!
This saved me hours trying to find my video :)

philldog's picture
philldog on July 7, 2012

I am trying to use iphoto as a video clip catalog, building smart folders for keywords I add. I use 4 second clips, that requiring looping on playback to understand their content (medical ultrasound clips). Any idea how to loop the video player in iphoto as one can do with quicktime and vlc, etc.?

Alexis's picture
Alexis on October 2, 2012

THANK YOU!!

Zoya's picture
Zoya on December 19, 2012

Thank you!! Now since all the video/movies have been isolated, is there a way I can delete them from the new smart album? For some reason I have a lot of duplicate videos and I would like to delete them but no matter which way I go about it, it won't delete. I was thinking of selection all and then creating a new event of all the videos but after I did that, I don't know where the event went... or if it was ever created! ANY TIPS ARE MUCH APPRECIATED!

KonaGal's picture
KonaGal on February 2, 2013

WOW ! thanx so much for this info ! 4 many years finding my movies has been a pain in iPhoto amongst tens of thousands of photos......now using your advise my life is Easier and i'll be able to delete and keep which videos easily .....mahalo nui loa

Louk Goldberg's picture
Louk Goldberg on February 16, 2013

My iPhoto has a mart folder option, but no photo or movie selections in the drop down menu.. Please help.

Marcos's picture
Marcos on March 2, 2013

Thanks, great tip!

mklement's picture
mklement on March 3, 2013

Great tip, thanks (and bummer that this isn't built into iPhoto in a straightforward manner, as it is in Picasa) - came in handy as part of instructions for moving/copying/deleting all video clips managed by iPhoto - http://superuser.com/a/560320/139307

Larry's picture
Larry on April 30, 2013

Does anyone know how to sort them by size?
I'd like to get rid of the large ones but I don't know how to sort my .mov files by size.
Thanks!

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