IPhone – Get video from iPhone Videos app onto Mac/PC

iMovie only supports the H.264 format, and will only load videos from two places:

• Camera Roll
• Synced iPhoto Library via iTunes (Photos Tab → Sync Photos from iPhoto → Include Videos)

As you've noticed, videos in your iTunes → Movies folder will only sync to the Videos app, and will not appear in iMovie.

The process is not at all convenient, but here's a video detailing how to convert a video to the right format on a Mac, and then get it into iMovie on an iPad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oF8-sDmD_1Y. He uses an app called StreamClip Video Converter to convert to H.264. You might be able to get away with exporting that format from iMovie on your Mac instead. iMovie is picky about the format though. If you have trouble, try to reproduce the settings in the video exactly.

I'm surprised nobody has answered this correctly.

The solution is to open iTunes, click on your iPhone, go to the Photos tab, then Sync Photos for the folder that contains the photo and video subfolders you want to sync. Each subfolder will then be sync'ed to your iphone UNDERNEATH the Camera Roll as new Albums, and these are treated seperately than the Camera Roll and will always remain synced.

Furthermore, apps that can access the Camera Roll almost always can also access Synced Albums, so this should really work well for you. I keep a whole bunch of old photos and videos on my iPhone at all times using this method and it works great.

As a bonus, unlike the Camera Roll, these Synced Albums don't get backed up in iTunes, so it won't slow down your Backup like a growing Camera Roll will.