Quick Guide to Join/Combine Clips in iMovie

Have you ever shot several clips and looked forward to joining them into one video? Most Mac users would like to do it in iMovie - a free editing program developed by Apple. If you're running iMovie on your computer or device, follow this guide to check it out.

Part 1. How to Join Clips into One in iMovie

iMovie offers the Join Clips feature, which lets you combine the clips from the same video after splitting. See how it works below:

Step 1

Open up iMovie, create a new project and import the video you want to join together in the event browser.

iMovie Join Clips: Import Video to iMovie on Mac

Step 2

Drag the video to the timeline. Here you can split and edit the video with ease.

iMovie Join Clips: Drag Video to Timeline and Split

Step 4

Head to Modify and choose the Join Clips option from the drop-down menu, then you'll see the clips are merged as one video.

iMovie Join Clips: Drag Video to Timeline and Split

Part 2. How to Join Several Clips in iMovie on iPad/iPhone

iMovie for iOS doesn't include the Join function, which means you can't merge videos directly. But you can still combine several clips in iMovie by following steps below.

Step 1: Launch iMovie and Create a New Project

Run iMovie on your device, click the File icon on the menu and choose "New Project" to create a new project. You can name the project and change the aspect ratio as you like.

Step 2: Load Video Clips to iMovie

Tap the Add Media button in the upper-right corner to load your videos. You can trim the clip before you add it by tapping the clip and dragging the yellow trim handles to select just the portion of the clip you want to add.

iMovie Join Clips: Load the Video to iMovie on iPad

Step 3: Join the Video

Once all the clips are loaded, drag and drop each clip in the order you want. After that, simply click on Done to export the whole clips to combine them into one video.

iMovie Join Clips: Combine the Video Clips

Part 3. Frequently Asked Questions About iMovie Join Clips

Q1: Why is Join Clips Option Greyed Out?

Ans: This is the most common and recurring issue in iMovie. Join Clips in iMovie becomes greyed as it's only for rejoining clips that are split in iMovie, which are not used to combine two or more independent video clips.

If you would like to import two separate video files to combine in iMovie, you must follow the above how-to guide.

Click on the Share icon in the top right corner, then click on the option File and export all the clips as a single video file. After the share is successful, you may then re-import it into the project.

Q2: What Format can iMovie Support to Import and Combine?

Ans: iMovie mainly-supported video formats include MP4, MOV, MPEG, AVCHD, HDV1080i, and DV.

Q3: Why I Failed to Re-join Clips that Were Once the Same Clip?

You can only rejoin the clips if you haven’t done other edits in the meantime, such as trimming out dead space. If you share out the split clips that will merge the segments, and then you can import the merged segments back into iMovie. You can create an auxiliary project for the purpose.

Part 4: An Easier Way to Join Clips with iMovie Best Alternative - FlexClip

When iMovie not fits your needs or iMovie fails to combine the clips as you want, you can consider its best alternative - FlexClip. With FlexClip, you can edit videos as below:

Step 1: Import the Video Files

Click on Media icon to import all the videos you want to join together. After that, drag them to the timeline and rearrange the order as you need.

iMovie Join Clips: Upload Video to FlexClip

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Step 2: Cut out Useless Clips

Preview your video clips and move the yellow sidebar to cut off unnecessary content.

iMovie Join Clips: Cut out Unnecessary Parts

Step 3: Edit Video Clips (Optional)

Supposing you want to make personal editing, you can move to the left sidebar to add music, text, overlay and more.

iMovie Join Clips: Edit the Video

Step 4: Combine the Clips

When everything is ready, you finally click the Export button to combine videos.

iMovie Join Clips: Combine the Video

FlexClip Editor /

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