How to use iMovie on iPhone and iPad

iMovie is a is a simple yet powerful video editing app developed by Apple for Mac, iPhone and iPad users. Being a free to use video editing tool for Apple users, it doesn’t compromises on features. With iMovie app, almost all video editing tasks can be achieved.

So in article, lets dive in on how to use iMovie on iPhone.

The iMovie app provides three types of projects to create and they are:

• Magic Movie (Chose your media and let iMovie create a movie for you)
• Storyboard (Use beautiful templates to easily create a video or movie trailer)
• Movie (Make a movie from scratch with the iMovie timeline)

So these are the three projects modes which iMovie provides, but if you have come here in a plan to learn or edit video yourself with full capability then Movie mode is what you will need to select.

How to Edit iMovie on iPhone

To edit iMovie on iPhone, tap on the iMovie icon

From the Start New Project > tap on Movie

It will ask you to select the media from your library, tap on all videos you need to edit and tap on the Create Movie button appearing at the bottom

All the selected media files will appear in the timeline

How to Add Transitions in iMovie

By default when the videos are imported or added in iMovie, the transition between video will automatically apply.

To change or remove the transitions in iMovie, tap on the transitions icon appearing in between two clips

And this will load several transitions at the bottom available in the iMovie app

Select any of the transitions which you wish to set in between two clips or to remove it you can set NONE which will remove the transitions in between that selected clip

This you need to do to for each and every clip in between for which you wish to select transitions of your choice.

Also once selecting the transition, you can even select the duration of the transition by tapping on the available duration below.

If you don’t want the sound to be played while transitions then just tap on the speaker logo and it will mute the sound while transition to un-mute you can re-tap on it.

How to Trim Video in iMovie

To trim video in iMovie tap on the video clip in the timeline which you wish to trim

On selecting the video clip in the time line a yellow handlebar will appear

Hold and drag the yellow handlebar appearing on the clip from right or left of the clip to the desired section of the video

Once you leave the yellow handlebar at the desired section, the video will start playing at that point of the end point which you placed.

How to Cut Video in iMovie

If you wish to cut the middle portion of the video in iMovie

Place the play head at the portion of the video where you wish to cut or split the video

Tap on the video clip in timeline and this will bring options at the bottom

From the menu available, Tap on the Scissor icon > and tap Split

This will split the video in two parts

If you wish, further you can trim or cut out parts of a video on iPhone or else delete by tapping on the delete option.

How to Add Filters on iMovie

To add Filters to Video in iMovie, select the video clip for which you wish to add filter

From the below menu, tap on the filter logo, which will appear like three big circles

It will load several filters, you can tap on filter and the result will be show on the screen

There will be slider below, with which you could decrease or increase the intensity of the selected filter as per your choice

How to Rotate Video in iMovie

To rotate the video, tap on the video from the timeline which you wish to rotate

Place two fingers on the video screen, and rotate it in the direction you wish the video to appear

How to Speed Up Video in iMovie

To speed up or speed down a video in iMovie, select the video clip from the timeline which you wish

Once selecting the video clip, from the menu appearing below tap on the watch icon

There will be slider which will show turtle and rabbit, if you drag the slider towards rabbit the speed will increase and if slide towards turtle the speed will decrease

Maximum the slow motion speed is 1/8 x and the maximum high speed is 2 x, within this range you can do slow motion or speed up the video

From the selected video you can even select the portion which you wish to speed up or speed down by moving the yellow handlebar

If between the clip, to freeze at a frame just place the play-head slider at the portion where you wish to freeze the video for few seconds and tap on the freeze from the bottom menu

Once selecting freeze you can select exact portion by movie the yellow handlebar slider

The add menu can be used to adjust the yellow handlebar slider

To reset the changes, you can tap on the reset button and it will remove all the applied speed up and speed down configuration from the clip.

How to Zoom in on iMovie

To Zoom In on iMovie, tap on the video clip from timeline

From the video playing screen, tap on the zoom icon

Once tapping on zoom, you can pinch to Zoom In, to zoom out do the opposite

How to Adjust Audio in iMovie iPhone

To adjust the volume of audio in iMovie on iPhone or iPad, tap on the video clip from the timeline for which you wish to adjust the volume

From the bottom menu, tap on the speaker logo

This will present the volume adjuster

Hold and Drag the slider to left or right to decrease or increase the volume

You can even completely remove the audio by moving the slider to zero

As per your choice you can adjust audio in iMovie, if the volume is too high of the clip than it can be used to normalize audio or if the sound recorded of audio is too low then it can be increased by using this feature.

How to Detach Audio in iMovie

To remove or detach audio in iMovie, tap on the video file in the timeline

Tap on the scissor icon, and from the options tap on the detach button

Detach will separate the audio from the video clip

The detached audio track from the video clip will appear separately in the timeline

Now you can trim the audio clip, cut it or delete it.

How to Add Music to iMovie on iPhone

To add music to iMovie, tap on the + button appearing above the iMovie timeline

Make sure you have the audio or music file in your device which you wish to add to the background of the music

This will bring a Videos and Photos page, from this page tap on the Files

And locate the music or audio file on your device by tapping on the browse section

Select the Audio or music from your device storage

And the music or audio which you imported will automatically added to the time of the video clip

To trim the audio to the video duration or to make the audio play at selected video portion you can tap on the audio file and hold and drag towards left or right.

How to Add Text to iMovie on iPhone

To add text or title to the video clip in iMovie, tap on the video clip from the timeline in which you need to show the title or text

Once selecting the clip, from the bottom menu tap on the T icon

This will present several styles of title text

Select any of the text styles, and that style will be applied to the clip

To change the text tap on the text displayed on the screen and this will bring edit and delete option

Tap on the edit button, and enter the text which you wish to show on this clip

Once you type the text, tap on done

You can drag title to move, and pinch to resize

The text font can be change by tapping on the Aa icon appearing after selecting the text style

Even the color of the next can be changed by tapping on the color icon

And by tapping on the three dots options several styles can be applied to the title such as Style, Text Shadow, Uppercase, Sound effects and Full Clip Duration

If you want to delete the style, just tap on the next and from the option appearing tap on the delete button

Similarly if you wish to add multiple text on iMovie, then it can be by following the same process on other video clips as well.

How to Export iMovie or Save Project

To Save iMovie to Camera Roll, tap on the Done button appearing at top left corner in the app

And this will save the project on your device to Photos

If you wish to make some changes in the project then you can tap on edit

To export the iMovie into a video file, tap on the up arrow icon

Tap on options, from the type select video if you wish to export to video file or if you wish to store it as project file and later edit in to your MAC then tap on project

If you select project all other settings will disappear and tap on done to save the file as project

If you have selected to save a video file, then next you will have to select the resolution from the list

Select the highest resolution as possible fro better video quality

HDR will be enabled by default, if you don’t want HDR then you can disable it by tapping on the button

Select the frame rate of video from 30 fps and 60 fps as per your preference

If the video imported contains 30 fps then its better to select 30 fps while exporting as, if the videos imported as short in 60 fps then select 60 fps while exporting for smoother video

60 fps can be enabled when at least half content in a project has been recorded at 60 fps or higher

Once selecting these settings, tap on the done button appearing on top right corner

To save it as a video file tap on the Save Video and this will being the exporting the movie

Depending on length of the video clip it may take several minutes to export the file

So stay calm during the export and don’t tap on phone or minimize the iMovie as the export will fail and you will need to export it once again.

The exported video file can be accessed in Photo library.