An import from any device into iPhoto captures both photos and movies.

Afterward, scrolling through the Events or Photos section it’s difficult to differentiate movies from photos.

Movies have a small white movie camera icon and the length of the shot in the bottom right-hand corner of the frame.

It’s easy to miss.

The good news is that there’s a better way to find movies in iPhoto.

Albums And Smart Albums 

You can create two kinds of albums in iPhoto:

Albums – This is a standard album. You change content by dragging pictures in and out.

Smart Albums – Smart Albums follow a rule that you create, e.g., Date Is In The Range 01/01/13 – 12/31/13. This rule would create an album that only holds photos and movies that were shot in 2013.
You cannot manually add or subtract items from a Smart Folder. The content either meets the conditions of the rule, or it doesn’t.

The easy way to differentiate the two is that Smart Albums have a cog in their icon (see below.)

Creating A Smart Album For Movies

• Open iPhoto.
• Go to File in the Menu Bar and select New Smart Album…

• A dialog box opens. Fill out each field as follows:
  • Smart album name: Movies
  • Match the following condition: Photo – is – Movie
• Click Ok.
• A smart album appears in the left-hand sidebar that contains all your movie files.

If you want more a general introduction on how to use Smart Folders, check out this post – How To… Create Folders In Apple Mail

Deleting A Movie From Your iPhoto Library

In the Smart Album, hitting the delete key or using the Delete command in the Menu Bar has no effect.

Command Option Delete erases a movie from your Smart Album and your Events folder.

This is a useful keystroke to remember if you work a lot with albums. In an Album, if you select an image and hit the delete key, the image is deleted from that album, but the original remains untouched in the events folder.

With Command Option Delete you can trash it in both places.

That’s it.

Have a fun weekend.

Live in Los Angeles County and need Mac, iPad. or iPhone support, repair, training… or just want some questions answered? Call me at 310-621-5679. I come direct to you. That’s as stress-free as it gets.