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Complete guide to iMovie for iOS

Learn how to make movies on your iPhone with the surprisingly powerful yet easy-to-use iMovie mobile app.

Matt Elliott Senior Editor
Matt Elliott is a senior editor at CNET with a focus on laptops and streaming services. Matt has more than 20 years of experience testing and reviewing laptops. He has worked for CNET in New York and San Francisco and now lives in New Hampshire. When he's not writing about laptops, Matt likes to play and watch sports. He loves to play tennis and hates the number of streaming services he has to subscribe to in order to watch the various sports he wants to watch.
Expertise Laptops, desktops, all-in-one PCs, streaming devices, streaming platforms
Matt Elliott
2 min read

iMovie for iOS lets you become a mobile movie maker. With the mobile app, you can skip the process of transferring video to your Mac and get started right on your iPhone, where your videos reside. In many ways, the stripped-down mobile version of iMovie is easier to use than the Mac app.

Read our guide to iMovie for iOS and start making mobile cinematic masterpieces:

To get started, you will need to choose either a Movie project or a Trailer project template. Learn how to create a Movie project, which is the more flexible of the two templates. If you want to make a Hollywood-style trailer on the quick, then you'll want to create a Trailer project.

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Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET


Creating a trailer is fairly straightforward because it forces you to follow a rigid outline and storyboard. For a Movie project, learn how to add video effects, which include filters, slow motion and split-screen effects.

Next, add a little polish to your movie project and learn how to add a title sequence to your project.

Do you want to turn a collection of video clips into something that resembles a movie production? Learn how to add a soundtrack and adjust audio in iMovie for iOS.

Calling all amateur Ken Burns auteurs! Learn how to add photos in iMovie for iOS, complete with Ken Burns's signature slow pans and zoom effects.

Lastly, it's time to share your iMovie creation with the world. Learn how to share your masterpiece from iMovie for iOS. You have a multitude of sharing options at your disposal, including three iCloud-related options.