So, be sure your device is actually saving a 1080p or 4K file. The first thing I figured out is that my iPhone was saving video files as 720p files. Since sheltering in place due to COVID-19, I’ve had more time than not and decided to chase this rabbit down its hole to understand and solve why I was unable to save a 1080p file in iMovie.

I’ve noted on a few occasions that 1080p is a selection in the list of resolutions, but that it’s grayed out. However, iMovie has also stumped me with its own complexities, having to use a number of workarounds that are seemingly straightforward in both Final Cut and Premiere.Ī recent stumped moments centered upon exporting or sharing a podcast audio file as a video file. Truth be told, I’ve been amazed at the breadth and body of video works produced using iMovie. While most professionals likely use Final Cut or Premiere to perform most video editing, the novice likely uses iMovie. So it's a tradeoff.Having landed here on this website, this page specifically, you’re likely about to pull your hair out as to why you’re unable to export or share a 1080p or 4K file, right? However the upscaling-downscaling is sure to lower your video quality by some token amount. If you still can’t keep your file size down encoding in 540p and using a lower profile, you can still down-sample it through Handbrake.

So you’ll probably want to try Medium or even Low.

From the figures you provided, I’d say your original video wasn’t produced using a profile equivalent to iMovie’s High setting. They just use different encoding profiles/levels, with varying bitrates. Lastly, I should point out that Low, Medium and High Quality settings all encode in H.264. I suggest you voice your concerns to Apple. In fact, in iMovie 10.0, 480p was still available, but as of iMovie 10.1, it’s gone.

However this will still produce a video with 2.25× the number of pixels, so the resulting video may or may not still be larger.Īs to why you can’t output in 360p, this appears to be a design decision by Apple (possibly to steer us towards Final Cut Pro), because earlier versions of iMovie allowed more granularity. You'll want to output in 540p instead (960×540). This alone would account for a huge jump in storage size. 720p resolution is 1280×720, which equates to quadruple the number of pixels vs.

Imovie wont export