How to edit movies in iMovie

Apple’s free video editor makes it easy to create your own home movies and trailers to promote them

DIFFICULT THOUGH IT is to believe, iMovie launched 22 years ago, in the fall of 1999. Like much of the software Apple made, and still makes, its goal was to sell hardware. In iMovie’s case, the iMac DV. Crucially, the iMac DV shipped with FireWire ports, enabling you to connect a digital video camera. And to make the most of that, Apple created iMovie so you could edit your home movies.

Spin forward a couple of decades and most of the video edited in iMovie is created on Apple’s iPhone and iPad. But you can still use it to edit digital video from just about any source and add footage to iMovie from an external drive, USB stick, or smart media card.

Like the other applications we’ve covered in this series of Beginner’s Guides, iMovie is heavily template–based, especially when it comes to making trailers. In fact, trailers are a great way to get started with iMovie, and we’ll show you how to make one. There’s also plenty of room for creativity, whether it’s in how you cut scenes and put them together, the music you add, or the effects you apply. And the best thing about it is once you’ve got the hang of the basics, it’s really easy to do. Before you know it, you’ll be uploading your creations to YouTube to share with the world.