Organizing Clips and Collections

When you bring video clips, audio clips, or pictures into Movie Maker, the program stores them in a collection folder in the Collections pane. The contents of the selected collection folder appear in the Collections area. As you continue to collect media clips for use in different movie projects, the number of clips in a collection and in Movie Maker can grow rapidly and become hard to manage. You can use the same management techniques you use in Windows Explorer to help you organize and remove clips and collections. Once you have clips in your collections, you can move them around and rename the clips and collections as you would a file or folder and use them to create a movie. When you no longer need individual video and audio clips or entire collections, you can remove them from Movie Maker. When you remove video and sound clips and collections, they are deleted only from Movie Maker; the original video and sound files, which you imported into Movie Maker, are not deleted and remain unchanged on your hard drive.

View and Create a Collection

Click the Collections button.

Click the Collection folder you want to view.

Click the Views button on the toolbar, and then click Thumbnails or Details.

Click the Views button on the toolbar, point to Arrange Icons By, and then click an arrangement type.

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To create a new collection, click the File menu, click New Collection Folder, type a name, and then press Enter.

To close the Collection pane, click the Collections button.

To open the Tasks pane, click the Tasks button.

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Move a Clip to a Collection

Click the Collections button.

Click the Collection folder that contains the clip you want to move.

Drag the clip to another Collection folder.

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Did You Know? You can create a collection folder. Click the Collections button on the toolbar, click the folder where you want the new folder, click the New Collection Folder button on the toolbar, type a name, and then press Enter.

Rename a Collection

Click the Collections button.

Right-click the Collection folder you want to rename, and then click Rename.

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Type a name, and then press Enter.

Did You Know? You can delete a media clip. Click the Collection folder that contains the clip you want to delete, click the clip in the Collections area, and then press Delete.