How to combine videos on iPhone with iMovie application

You have recorded two or more videos on your iPhone and now want to combine them into one movie, what to do? iOS's built-in photo/video editing tools aren't 'professional' enough to help you with such an in-depth task. However, there are many specialized, free applications that can help you get the job done easily. For example, a famous video editing application for iPhone called iMovie.

This article will show you how to combine videos on iPhone with the iMovie application.

Merge iPhone videos with iMovie app

iMovie is part of Apple's suite of products for iOS (also macOS), and is a great video editing app for iPhone. With iMovie, you can import videos, photos, and edit with a simple interface. The application has the ability to cut and merge videos, arrange them on the timeline and even add transition effects (basic clips) to the video.

If you don't have iMovie installed on your iPhone, launch the App Store, search for the keyword ' iMovie ' and install the app on the device. iMovie is completely free.

Next, launch the newly installed iMovie app and tap ' Create Project '.

In the ' New Project ' menu , select ' Movie '. Immediately a new 'film project' will be created in the application.

You will see multimedia content on your iPhone. Here, select Videos > All to access all videos on the device.

On the video listing page, tap the first video you want to use. Then, in the icons that open, click the check mark icon to add the video to your selection list. Similarly, tap the second video you want to merge. Then click on the check mark icon. Repeat this step for each video you want to combine.

Once you've selected your video, tap the ' Create Movie ' button at the bottom of the screen.

You'll see your iMovie timeline with all the videos selected and loaded on it. Scroll the timeline to the left to access all your videos.

At this point, if you want to reorder your videos, drag and drop the videos to the position you want. Similarly, to add a transition effect, select the transition icon between two videos and then select the desired effect.

When you're done, in the top left corner, select ' Done '.

You are now on the iMovie project overview page. At the bottom of this page, tap the share icon (as shown below).

The iMovie sharing menu opens. Here, choose how you want to save your merged video file. If you want to export the file to the Photos app, select ' Save Video '.

You will be asked to choose a resolution for the video. Click a resolution level on the list.

( Note : Remember that the higher the resolution (quality), the larger the video file size will be).

iMovie will begin exporting the merged video file. When completed, you will see a confirmation message on the screen. Click ' OK ' to close this message.

If you selected the ' Save Video ' option, the merged video will now be in your iPhone's media library. Hope you are succesful.

Lesley Montoya

Update 17 October 2023