← The editor

Video guide

How to use each part of the video editor: what each tool is for, the steps, and what to know. Everything happens in your browser; no video is uploaded.

1. Starting

Everything you make here is a project: a list of which files are used, where they are cut, and every setting. The videos themselves stay where they are on your device. Start by adding files, then build the video on the timeline below the picture.

Adding files

• Add files: press Open files, or drop videos, sound and pictures onto the page. Videos go to the end of Video 1, sound goes on a sound track, and pictures wait in the Media tab until you press + on them (on a phone they go to the end of Video 1 too).
• Record: Media tab, Record: the screen, the camera, a voice-over that plays the video while you speak, or the screen and the camera at once. A teleprompter and a 3, 2, 1 countdown are there too (see Quick tools).

Adding only a part of a file

Useful for a long recording when you only need a few seconds of it.

1. Press a file’s picture or name in the Media tab. It opens in a viewer over the preview.
2. Play or drag to where the part starts and press In (I). Go to where it ends and press Out (O).
3. Choose where it goes: Insert (W) puts it into Video 1 at the playhead; Append (E) at the end of Video 1; Overwrite (D) over what is there; On top (Q) on a track above.

• The marked part is lit on the bar under the picture; drag either end of it to move that mark.
• “All” (X) takes the marks off, to use the whole file. Esc or × (at the top, or after On top) closes the viewer.
• The marks are remembered for each file, so you can come back to it.

The Media list

• With more than a few files it gets a search box and a choice of All files, All but rejected, Not used yet, Favourites, Rejected, a folder, a keyword or a collection you kept.
• The star and the folder of a file are set at the top of its viewer.
• The file’s name at the top of the viewer is a list: pick another file to look at it instead, or “+ Add a file…” to open a new one straight into the viewer (it goes into Media, not onto the timeline, until you press Insert, Append, Overwrite or On top).
• Move the mouse along a video’s small picture to skim through it without opening it.

Projects

• The project menu: the project’s name is in the top bar. Its menu has New project, Rename, Make a copy, Keep a snapshot, Delete, and the list to switch between projects.
• Start over (the bin in the top bar; on a phone in the ⋯ menu) clears the open project only; the others are kept.
• A project as a file: the project menu has “Save as a file” and “Open a project file…”. The file holds the project’s description (which files, cut where, every setting), not the videos. Use it as a backup, or to move to another browser, where the videos have to be found again.

Undo and the history

• Undo and redo are the two arrows in the top bar (Ctrl+Z, Ctrl+Shift+Z).
• History: the clock beside them lists every step, newest first. Press one to go back to it; the steps after it stay in the list, so you can go forward again.

2. The timeline

The timeline is where the video is built, left to right in time. The rows, top to bottom, are Text, Effects, Video 2 and above, Video 1, then the sound tracks. A higher video track is drawn on top of a lower one. The upright line is the playhead: the picture shows the moment it is on.

Video 1 is the main story. It has no gaps: clips follow one another, and dragging one reorders them. Everything else (words, stickers, clips on tracks above, sounds) sits over or under it.

Picking and moving

• Pick a clip by pressing it; its settings open in the Edit tab. Move it by dragging; drag it up or down to put it on another track.
• Pick several: hold Shift or Ctrl and press each one, or hold Shift and drag a box over empty timeline. Ctrl+A picks everything. Together they can be dragged, deleted, switched off, given a label, a transition, or the settings you copied.
• Delete removes the picked item. Ctrl+D copies it.
• Switch off (V): the picked clip stays on the timeline, faint, but is not seen or heard. Handy to try the video without it. V again switches it on.
• Name and label (Edit tab): give a clip a name of your own, and a colour that shows along its top, to find it again in a long video.

Cutting and trimming

• Trim by dragging either end of the picked clip: it shows less (or more) of its file.
• Cut in two at the playhead with Split (S). B turns on a blade that cuts wherever you click; B or Esc puts it away.
• Trim to the playhead: Q cuts off the clip’s start up to the playhead, W cuts off its end. The quickest way to take out a bad start or end.
• Fades and volume on the clip: the picked clip has a white dot near each top corner; drag one inwards for a fade. The white line across it is its volume; drag it up or down.

More ways to edit

• The usual transition: Shift+T puts the transition you used last (a dissolve at first) on the cut before each picked clip. Between two sounds it is a cross-fade (“Blend in”, under Sound).
• Slide: hold Alt+Shift and drag a Video 1 clip: it moves between its neighbours, which get longer and shorter, so the video keeps its length.
• Stretch: R, then drag a clip’s end (or hold Ctrl and drag it): the clip gets faster or slower to fit the new length. R or Esc puts it away.
• Gap: Media tab, Backgrounds, “Add a gap” puts an empty clip into Video 1 at the playhead. It holds a place open, and the background shows.
• Join into one clip (Alt+G, with several picked; “Join” in a phone’s bar): the picked items become one joined clip on Video 1, which can be opened again to change them or broken apart (see Joined clips). Pick at least one Video 1 clip; picked Video 1 clips must be next to each other. The transitions at its two ends go.
• Match frame (F): opens the file of the clip under the playhead in the viewer, at that very frame, with the clip’s part marked, to take a bit more of it. The Match frame button (an icon at the top of the Edit tab; in a phone’s bar) opens the picked clip’s file, at its first frame when the playhead is not on it.

Finding your way

• Zoom with + and −, or Fit (0) to see the whole video.
• Snapping to ends, markers and the playhead is on, so things line up exactly; N turns it off and on.
• Skimming (Shift+S): the playhead follows the mouse over the timeline, without pressing.
• Index (Video tab): everything on the timeline as a list, in order, with a search box. Press a line to go to it and pick it.
• Tracks: press a track’s name to hide, mute, lock or remove it, or to add a track. A locked track can’t be changed by mistake. Solo there makes that track the only one heard.
• Picture aids (Video tab): Safe zones and a Grid of thirds are lines over the picture to place things by; they are never in the finished video. Preview quality (Full, Half, Quarter) draws the preview with fewer pixels, which is faster on a slow device; the finished video is always full quality.

3. A clip’s settings

Pick a clip and open the Edit tab. Its settings are in groups, sorted into four sections at the top: Clip (time, speed, crop, its place), Colour, Sound and Motion (movement, animation, keyframes, transitions). Words, stickers and backgrounds have groups of their own.

Finding your way in the Edit tab

• The top of the Edit tab stays in view as it scrolls: the picked item’s picture, name and length, its buttons as icons (Split, Copy, Replace, Match frame, Fold every group, Delete; hover for their names) and the section chips.
• Groups fold: press a group’s name to open or close it. In the Edit tab one is open at a time: opening one folds the others (hold Shift to keep them open too). The Media tab’s sections (Titles, Stickers, Sound effects…) fold the same way.
• The small “i” beside a name explains the group. Hold the mouse over any button or label for a tip.
• Double-click a slider to put it back to normal.
• The side bar’s width: drag its left edge; a double click puts it back.

Speed

• Speed: 0.25× (four times slower) to 4× (four times faster). Faster sounds higher.
• Speed curve (in Speed): the clip speeds up and slows down as it goes. Montage goes fast, slow, fast, slow. Hero and Bullet rush in, hold a slow moment, and rush out (Bullet more strongly). Jump cut skips ahead in bursts. Flash in starts fast and settles; Flash out ends fast. The sound follows. Cutting the clip makes each half steady again.
• Speed parts (Shift+B): cuts the clip’s speed at the playhead, so the part before and the part after can each have their own (Speed, Segments), for example normal, then slow for the best moment, then normal. The change from one to the next glides, unless “Jump between speeds” is ticked. × joins a part to the one before; “Steady again” makes it one speed. Cutting the clip keeps each half’s parts.
• Instant replay (Speed) puts the clip again straight after it. Rewind plays it backwards twice as fast after it, then again.
• Smooth slow motion (in Speed): blends one frame into the next when a clip is slowed down, so it doesn’t stutter. You see it in the finished video, not in the preview (Chrome or Edge).
• Play backwards: a tick box in Speed. The clip has no sound while it plays backwards.
• Freeze frame (Shift+H): put the playhead inside a video clip and press “Freeze the frame at the playhead”. A two-second still is put in there; change its length under Time.

The picture

• Picture: Show all of it (with the background round it if its shape differs from the video’s), or Fill the picture (Video 1).
• Crop: the buttons Video (the video’s own shape), 1:1, 4:5, 9:16 and 16:9 open the crop box at that shape, to slide it to the part you want; “All of it” undoes the crop. The four sliders cut each side yourself (up to 95%, or type the % in the box next to one). The size the crop leaves is under them. A Video 1 clip that is cropped is zoomed in to fill the picture (no bars); its box keeps the video’s shape unless you pick another. Untick “Zoom to fill” (also in the crop box’s bar) to crop without zooming: the part kept keeps its shape, with bars round it. On a phone or tablet, pick a Video 1 clip, then pinch the picture to zoom in or out and drag it with one finger to choose the part that shows. On a phone the timeline moves out of the way as you start, so you can pinch anywhere round the picture; double tap the picture to bring it back. The crop box opens that way on a phone too. Turn by quarters and Mirror are here too.
• Fades: fade the picture in from black and out to black.
• Animation: pick how the clip comes in, how it goes out, and what it does while it shows (fade, slide, pop, zoom, blur, spin; pulse, wiggle, bounce, flicker). “Takes” sets how long each lasts. Choosing one plays it once.
• Track: move the clip one track up or down.

Crop by dragging:

1. Press “Drag the crop in the picture”. The clip shows whole with a box over it, and a bar above it.
2. Drag the box’s sides or corners, or the box itself to move it (or the arrow keys; Shift: further). Its middle catches the picture’s middle (Alt while dragging, or N, stops that).
3. To keep a shape, pick it in the bar (Original, Video’s shape, 1:1, 4:5, 9:16, 16:9), or hold Shift while dragging a corner to keep the one it has.
4. Press Enter or Done to keep it, Esc or Cancel to go back to how it was. Reset shows the whole picture. (Not for a zoomed or tilted clip; the sliders still work there.)

4. Filters and colour

Pick a clip and open the Colour section of the Edit tab. A filter gives the clip a ready-made look in one press; Adjust fixes a picture that is too dark, too blue or too flat; the finer tools (Tones, Curves, the Colour board, Colour by colour) change one part of the picture by itself. They can all be used together. Hold “Original” down at any time to see the picture without its filter and colours.

Filters and looks

• Filter: pick a look from the strip (tabs: Natural, Warm, Cool, Food, Portrait, Travel, Night, Film, Cinema, Decades, B&W, Two colours, Creative). Strength sets how much of it. “Use on all clips” copies it to every clip, so the video looks alike. “☆ Favourite” keeps it under the ★ tab.
• Save a look (Filter): “Save this look…” keeps the filter, sliders, curves and LUT under a name. Saved looks are listed there for every project; press one to use it, × to delete it.
• LUT: open a .cube file from your device (a camera’s or a film’s look) and set its strength. It is kept in this browser for every project; “Forget this LUT” removes it.

Fixing light and colour

• Adjust: Brightness, Contrast, Colour, Warmth, Tint, Hue, Fade, Dark corners, Grain, Glow, Sharpen, Blur, Black and white. “Colours as they were” resets them.
• More in Adjust: Halation (a red glow round lights, as on film), Soft focus, Tilt-shift (blurs above and below a band, so the scene looks like a model; “Sharp band” moves the band), Dust (dust and scratches), Light leak, Corner colour (for Dark corners) and Date stamp (type a date, or press “Today’s date”; empty removes it).
• White balance (Adjust): for a picture that looks too yellow or too blue. Press “Pick white or grey”, then press something in the picture that should have no colour (a wall, a shirt, paper). “Take it off” undoes it.
• Auto (Adjust): “Balance colour” sets a white balance from the clip’s own picture; “Enhance light” moves its darkest parts to black and its brightest to white (the All curve), for a picture that looks grey and flat.
• Tones: Highlights and Shadows change the bright and the dark parts by themselves (bring back a sky, lighten a face in shadow); Whites and Blacks move the two ends. Vibrance adds colour where there is little of it, so strong colours don’t go too far. “Tones as they were” resets them.

Finer colour

• Colour board: a tint, how much of it, and darker or brighter, separately for shadows, midtones and highlights, for example blue shadows and warm highlights.
• Colour wheels (Colour board): three wheels for shadows, midtones and highlights. Drag a dot towards a colour to tint that part; a double click puts it back. The sliders under them are the same settings.
• Curves: left is the dark parts, right the bright ones, up is brighter. Press the line to add a point and drag it; drag a point off the square (or double-click it) to remove it. All, Red, Green and Blue each have a curve. The buttons under it (More contrast, Softer, Brighter, Darker, Faded, Negative) set one in a press, and Straight undoes it. “All four curves straight” resets every curve.
• Colour by colour: press one of the eight dots (Red to Magenta), then change its Hue, “Colour” and “Darker – brighter”. Only that colour changes: a bluer sky, greener grass. A dot with a white middle has been changed; “Every colour as it was” resets all eight.
• Match (Adjust): to make two clips filmed apart look alike. Press “Match another clip…”, then press the clip on the timeline whose colours this one should get. The change is made with the clip’s red, green and blue curves, so you can see and adjust it under Curves.
• Compare (Adjust, and the Video tab): another frame beside the picture while you match colours: “Cut before” (the last frame of Video 1’s clip before this one), “Cut after” (the first frame of the next), or a “Still” you saved with “Save a still”. Split shows it on the left half, Side by side next to the picture. It follows the playhead to other clips, and is never in the finished video.

Scopes

Scopes measure the picture, so you don’t have to trust your screen. Tick “Show the scopes over the picture” at the bottom of the Colour board.

• Histogram: how much of the picture is dark (left) or bright (right).
• Waveform: how bright each part is, left to right across the picture.
• RGB parade: red, green and blue side by side; when they are level in a grey or white part, the colour is balanced.
• Vectorscope: grey in the middle, stronger colour further out; the line is where skin sits.

Taking out a background

Green screen (Colour, Green screen), for a person or thing filmed in front of green or blue:

1. Put the clip on a video track above the clip that should show behind it.
2. Tick “Take one colour out of this clip”.
3. Choose the colour with Green, Blue, the colour box, or “Pick it in the picture” and a press on the colour.
4. Tune it: “How much goes” widens the colour taken out, “Soft edge” smooths the outline, and “Spill” removes the green glow on a person.

• Luma key (Colour): the dark parts go see-through (fire, smoke or words shot on black); “The bright parts instead” for things shot on white. “Below” sets how dark, “Soft edge” smooths it.
• Scene removal (Colour, a video clip): with no green screen. Put the playhead on a moment with nobody in it and press “The empty scene is at the playhead”. What looks like that empty scene goes see-through and what came into it stays. “How different” and “Soft edge” tune it. Best with a camera that doesn’t move and steady light; put the clip on a track above another to show that one behind.

Colour on several clips at once

• Adjustment layer (Media tab, Backgrounds): a clip with no picture on a track above. Its Colour settings change every clip under it for as long as it lasts, and its mask keeps the change to one part of the picture. Lengthen it to cover more clips.
• Or copy one clip’s colours to others with Copying settings.

5. Transitions

A transition sits on the cut between two clips that touch, and takes the video from one to the other: a soft dissolve, a slide, a wipe, a flash and many more. Without one, the cut is instant.

1. Press the small button on the cut in the timeline (or pick the second clip and open Transition).
2. Choose a tab (Simple, Slide, Wipe, Shapes, Moves, 3D, Light, Paint, Glitch, Retro) and a kind. The cut plays once so you can see it.
3. Set “How long”. None removes it.

Its settings

• Pace: Smooth, Even, Slow start, Slow end or Bounce: how it speeds up and slows down on its way.
• Soft edge: blurs the edge of wipes, shapes and paint.
• Through a colour (Light): a colour box appears to choose the colour.
• ☆ Favourite keeps the kind under the ★ tab.
• Add a whoosh puts a whoosh sound on the cut.

On many cuts at once

• Use on all cuts gives every cut the same one.
• Random on all cuts gives each cut one by chance (from your favourites once you have three).
• Shift+T puts the usual one on the cuts of the picked clips.

How it uses time

During a transition both clips show at once. On Video 1 the two clips share that much time, so the video gets that much shorter. On an upper track the second clip’s start must be trimmed by at least the transition’s length.

6. Effects

An effect changes the whole picture for as long as it lasts (a shake on a beat, snow falling, an old film look), and leaves the words alone. Effects sit on the Effects row of the timeline, over every clip under them.

1. Put the playhead where it should start and press Effects (E).
2. Pick one from the tabs: Motion (shake, echo, heartbeat, zoom blur), Glitch (glitch, VHS, slices, static), Light (flash, spotlight, sun rays, lens flare, disco), Film (old film, old TV, comic, neon edges, night vision, countdown, camcorder), Lens (mirrors, kaleidoscope, fisheye, tunnel, wave), Weather (snow, rain, fog, fireflies, leaves, lightning), Fun (sparkles, bokeh, confetti, hearts, bubbles).
3. Drag its ends on the Effects row to set how long it lasts, and drag it to move it.

• Its settings are Strength, Speed, and how quickly it comes and goes.
• Two effects can overlap, and both show.
• “☆ Favourite” keeps an effect under the ★ tab.

On one clip only

Pick the clip, open Motion, then Effect, and choose one from the list. It stays on that clip (a small clip on an upper track too) for as long as the clip lasts, and moves with it.

7. Words, titles, backgrounds and captions

Words are items on the Text row of the timeline, shown over the picture for as long as they last. Titles, templates and captions are ready-made words to change.

Adding words

1. Put the playhead where they should appear and press Text (T).
2. Type them in the Words box.
3. Drag them in the picture to place them; the corner square sizes them.
4. Drag their ends on the Text row to set how long they show.

Their look

• Look: letters, size, colour, bold, a label behind them, shadow, outline, glow, left / centre / right, turn, see-through, and how they mix with the picture.
• Quick styles: the buttons at the top of Look (Plain, Neon, Bubble, Comic, Gold, Elegant, Typed, Subtitle) set several things in one press; change anything after.
• More for letters: “Two colours, one above the other” with a second colour, Space between letters, and Space between lines.
• The label (Look): with “A label behind the words” ticked you can set its “Label colour”, make it rounder with “Round label” (up to a pill), and give it a “Tail” for a speech bubble.
• Curve (Look): bends the words into an arch (right) or a bowl (left).
• Your own fonts: press “Add a font from this device…” under Letters and pick a .ttf, .otf or .woff2 file. It then appears in the Letters list for every project in this browser. “Forget this font” removes it.

Moving words

• Animation: how they come in, how they go out, and what they do while they are there (pulse, wave, rainbow and others). Choosing one plays it once.
• Karaoke (Words): the words light up one after the other for as long as they show. “Fill up” keeps them lit, “One word lit” lights only the word being said, “Word by word” brings each word in as it is said. “Lit colour” sets the colour.
• To move them across the picture, use keyframes (see Animation); to keep them beside something that moves, see “Follow something…” in Stickers.

Titles and templates

• Titles (Media tab): Big title, Title and a line, Lower third (plain or in colour), Breaking news, Quote, Rolling credits, Subscribe button, Like and follow, Location tag, Speech bubble, Chat messages, Curved title, Karaoke line, Countdown. Each adds ready-made words at the playhead to edit.
• Templates (Media tab): Intro, Chapter card, Quote card, Countdown, Outro, End credits. Each puts a background, words and sometimes an effect at the end of Video 1; change the words and colours as you like.
• Photo story (Templates) makes a title card, every picture in the Media list with a transition of its own, and an end card. Before and after puts the first two files side by side with a label on each.

Captions

Captions are the words of what is said, shown at the bottom, one line after another.

• Captions (Media tab): “Add here” adds one at the playhead; “Open .srt…” reads a caption file (from a phone app or a website that writes them); “Save .srt” writes one, for YouTube and others.
• Caption style (Words, on a caption): Classic, Bold, Yellow, Pill, Karaoke, One word, Word by word, Neon. Then “Give every caption this look” to keep them alike.
• “Only in the .srt file” keeps them out of the picture, so a player can switch them on and off. The Export tab has the same choice.

Backgrounds

Backgrounds (Media tab): plain colours and two-colour blends, added as a clip, for a title card or behind words. Change the colours in the clip’s Background group.

8. Stickers, drawing and blurred spots

Stickers, drawing and blurred spots are in the Media tab under Stickers. Each becomes an item on the Text row, so it is moved, sized, trimmed, animated and given keyframes like words.

Stickers

• The Stickers section has four tabs: Emoji (about 450, by kind, with the ones you used last under Recent), Shapes, Moving and Yours. “Find a sticker” searches all of them by name.
• Emoji and shapes: press one to add it at the playhead. Drag it in the picture; the corner square sizes it. An emoji has a size and an Edge (a white or coloured border, as a cut-out sticker has); type or paste another into its box to change it. Emoji look as your device draws them.
• Shapes (30 of them: arrows, lines, circles, boxes, bubbles, a ribbon, a price tag, a pin, a play button, a pointer…) have a colour, Narrower – wider, “Only its outline”, the thickness of its line and an Edge in a second colour. Use them to point at or circle something.
• Moving stickers: confetti, sparkles, floating hearts, a click, a countdown, swipe up, a bouncing arrow, a circle and an underline that draw themselves, a bell, a like, sun rays, typing dots, REC with a running time, a spinner and a loading bar. Each has two colours, a size and a speed; the countdown counts from the number you give over the time it stays, and the loading bar fills over it.
• Ready-made (under Moving): a few stickers and words that go together, such as Subscribe + bell, NEW badge, SALE, Link in bio, Celebrate and Vlog REC. Each part is its own item to change or delete.
• Your own picture or GIF (Yours, “Add a picture or GIF…”): pick one from your device. It goes on a track above, small, at the playhead, and a GIF moves and goes round for as long as the clip lasts. It stays under Yours in this browser for every project; press it to add it again, × to forget it. (GIFs move in Chrome and Edge; elsewhere they are a still.) Its Size group has an Edge: a border round the picture’s shape, as a cut-out sticker has.

Drawing

1. Press “Draw”. A bar appears over the picture.
2. Pick a colour and a thickness, and draw with the mouse or a finger.
3. Undo takes back the last line. Press Done (or Esc) to finish.

The drawing is one item. To add to it later, pick it and press “Draw more”; “Undo the last line” there takes back its newest line.

Blurred spots

Blur a spot: a box that hides what is under it, for a face, a screen or a number plate. Choose Blocks or Blur, Round for an oval, its height and width, and how strong. To follow something that moves, press ◇ for its place, move the playhead, and drag the spot to the new place, or use “Follow something…” below.

Following something that moves

Follow something… (Place group of words, a sticker or a blurred spot) keeps the item beside a thing in the video, such as a name beside a person who walks across.

1. Put the playhead where both the item and the thing show.
2. Press “Follow something…”, then press the thing to follow in the picture.
3. The editor looks through the clip and gives the item keyframes, so it stays beside that thing as it moves.

↺ beside the Place keyframe takes them off. It works on a video clip that isn’t turned, zoomed or moving, in Chrome or Edge.

9. Animation

Animation here means a setting that changes as the video plays: a clip that grows, words that slide in from the side, a sound that gets quieter. A keyframe keeps a setting’s value at one moment; between two keyframes the setting glides from one value to the other.

Making a move

1. Pick the clip, words or sticker. Put the playhead where the change starts and press ◇ beside the setting.
2. Move the playhead to where it ends and change the setting (move the slider, or drag in the picture). A second keyframe is made for you.
3. Play it. Add more keyframes the same way for a longer move.

• What can be animated: place, size, zoom, left–right, up–down, turn, see-through and volume.
• In the picture: once a place or size has keyframes, dragging in the picture sets one at the playhead.

Seeing and changing keyframes

• On the timeline: keyframes show as small diamonds on the clip. Press one on the picked clip to pick it (it turns blue), drag it to move it in time, and Delete or a double click removes it. While a keyframe is picked, Delete removes it and not the clip.
• Keyframes group: a list of the clip’s keyframes. Press a time to go to one; change the number beside it (seconds after the clip begins) to move it; × removes it. Previous and Next jump between them, Smooth or Straight sets how it glides, and “Remove all keyframes” clears them.
• Lanes (under the list): each animated setting as a line over the clip’s length. Drag a dot sideways for its time and up or down for its value; a double click on a line adds a keyframe there, on a dot removes it.
• Changing a keyframe’s value: go to it, then move the setting’s slider (or drag in the picture).
• One keyframe’s own way: the small list beside a keyframe sets how the settings go on from it to the next one: Usual, Smooth, Straight, Slow start, Slow end, Bounce or Jump (stays, then jumps).

Taking them off

• What deleting does: the setting then glides between the keyframes that are left; when the last one goes, the setting stays as that keyframe had it. It does not go back to normal by itself.
• Reset: ↺ beside a setting removes its keyframes and puts it back to normal (zoom 100%, no turn, fully solid, and so on). “Reset what is animated” in the Keyframes group does that for every animated setting.

Without keyframes

• A slow move over the whole clip (Move group): Zoom in, Zoom out, or a pan, with “How much”. It needs no keyframes and follows the clip’s length; good for photos.
• Ready-made moves: a clip’s or words’ Animation group (in, out, and while it shows).

10. Picture in picture

Picture in picture is a clip shown over another, such as your face in a corner over a screen recording. Any clip on Video 2 or above sits over the picture.

1. Add one with the second button beside a file in the Media tab, or drag a clip up from Video 1.
2. Drag it in the picture to place it, and size it with the corner square or Size.
3. Drag its ends on the timeline to set how long it shows.

• Size and place: Size and the nine-place grid put it in a corner or the middle in one press. “Show all of it” and “Fill the picture” set it in one press too.
• Frame: Corners (rounder), Border and its colour, and a Shadow, so it stands out from what is behind.
• See-through: how solid it is.
• Blend: Normal, Multiply, Screen, Overlay, Add and others: how its colours mix with the picture under it. Screen and Add, for example, drop the black from light effects filmed on black.

Masks

A mask shows only a part of the clip.

• Shapes: show the clip through an Oval, Box or Rounded shape, with width, height, position and a soft edge. “Invert” hides the inside instead. A masked clip has no border or shadow.
• Drawn: press “Draw it in the picture”, then press points round the part to keep; Enter or a double click finishes.
• ◇ beside Left – right and Up – down makes the mask follow something that moves (see Animation).

11. Split screen, slideshow and replacing a file

Ready-made ways to lay out several clips or pictures, and to swap a clip’s file without losing its edits.

Split screen

Two to four clips side by side or stacked, all playing at once (Media tab):

1. Put two to four clips on top of each other: one on Video 1 and the others on tracks above (the second button beside a file).
2. Put the playhead on them and pick a layout: two side by side, two stacked, three across, three stacked, one big and two small, or four.

• Each clip fills its part, so its edges are cut. Left – right and Up – down (Move group) choose which part shows.
• “None” undoes it; “Take it out of the split screen” does so for one clip.

Slideshow

1. Media tab, Slideshow: add your pictures.
2. Set the seconds each and press “Make from the pictures”.

They go onto Video 1, filling the picture, with a slow move and a dissolve between them. Change any of it afterwards like any clip. Add music on a sound track under it.

Replacing a file

Replace (the ⇄ icon at the top of the Edit tab): pick another file and it takes the clip’s place, keeping the trims, filters, keyframes and transition. Useful for a better take or a fixed version. A video clip takes a video or a picture; a sound clip takes a file with sound.

12. Sound

Every video clip has its own sound, and sound files go on the sound tracks under Video 1. Pick a clip and open the Sound section of the Edit tab for its settings; the Mixer in the Video tab sets whole tracks.

A clip’s sound

• Sound group: Volume (up to 200%), Mute, Role, Fade in, Fade out.
• Pan (Sound group): moves the sound towards the left or the right ear. It can have keyframes.
• Expand the sound (Sound group of a video clip): its sound becomes a clip of its own on a sound track under it, linked (🔗). Drag its ends to start the sound before the picture or end it after (J and L cuts, as films do between scenes). It follows the clip when the clip moves, and goes when the clip is deleted. “Put the sound back under the picture” undoes it; Unlink (on the sound) lets it go its own way.
• Voice-over: Media tab, Record, Voice-over. The video plays while you speak, and the recording is marked as a voice already (for Ducking, below).

Cleaning and evening out

• Level it (Sound tools): listens to the clip and sets its volume to the usual loudness (about −14 LUFS, what YouTube and others play at). With several picked, “Same loudness” does it for each, so they are as loud as each other.
• Leveller: evens out speech that gets loud and quiet.
• Noise gate: quiet hiss between words goes silent. High values can clip the ends of words.
• Hum (Sound tools): takes out the buzz of mains power, 50 Hz or 60 Hz, and its overtones.
• Clean the noise (Sound tools): learns the steady hiss (a fan, wind, a room’s hum) from the quiet moments and takes it out everywhere; “Clean by” says how much. It makes a clean copy of the clip’s part of the sound, kept in this browser: a sound clip then plays that; a video clip gets it as its linked sound underneath. Ten minutes at most at a time. Undo goes back.
• Tone: Clear voice, More bass, Less bass, Brighter, Warmer, Telephone, Old radio. “Your own (drawn)” shows a pad with three dots: deep sounds on the left, high ones on the right. Drag a dot up for more and down for less; a double click makes it flat again.
• Voice effect: “Sounds like” Echo, Reverb (a big room), Robot, Megaphone or Underwater, with “How much”. It is heard in the preview and in the finished video.

Several sounds together

• Mixer (Video tab): a row for each track with its volume, its left – right, M (mute) and S (solo), and a Master row for everything together. The Limiter on the Master keeps loud moments from crackling. A double click puts a slider back.
• Ducking: music that gets quieter while someone speaks. Tick “This is a voice” on speech, and give the music a “Duck by” value. The music drops while a voice clip plays and comes back after.
• Meters: the two bars at the right edge of the picture show how loud it is while playing. Keep them out of the red, or the sound may crackle.
• Roles (Dialogue, Music, Effects): see Auditions, roles and finer editing.

Sync by sound, for a camera clip and a separate sound recording (a phone or a microphone) that caught the same moment:

1. Pick both (Shift and a press on each).
2. Press “Sync by sound”. The one on a sound track (or an upper track) moves to where the two line up.
3. Mute the clip’s own sound, so only the better recording is heard.

Music and timing

• Mark the beats: pick a piece of music and press “Mark the beats” (Beats and silences). A marker lands on each beat, and clips, words and the playhead catch on them, so cuts fall on the music. “Mark more of them” adds the lighter beats; “Remove the beat marks” takes them all off (also in the Video tab).
• Cut Video 1 to the beats (Beats and silences, once beats are marked): “Every beat”, “Every 2nd” or “Every 4th” moves the end of each Video 1 clip so the cut after it lands on the nearest beat. Cuts the music doesn’t reach stay where they are.
• Take out the silences: cuts the quiet stretches out of the picked clip and closes it up, for the pauses in someone talking. “Silent below” is a share of the clip’s loud parts; “At least” leaves short pauses in. Ctrl+Z puts them back.

Sound effects

Media tab, Sound effects: Whoosh, Swish, Pop, Click, Ding, Beep, Right, Wrong, Boom, Riser, Laser, Drum, Snare, Clap, Camera, Heartbeat. A press puts one on a sound track at the playhead. They are made by the browser, not downloaded.

13. Markers, the range and connected clips

Markers are notes on the timeline at a moment; the range is a stretch of time you mark to play, take out or export; connected clips keep what sits on a Video 1 clip with it.

Markers

• M adds one at the playhead; ; and ' jump between them.
• Name and colour them in the Video tab, for example “Chorus” or “Fix this”. Named markers can be copied as YouTube chapters (see Export).

The range

• I marks its start, O its end, X clears it. / plays it round and round.
• In the Video tab, “Take it out” removes that part of the video and closes the gap; “Lift it out” removes it and leaves a gap, so nothing after it moves.
• The Export tab can export only the range.

Connected clips

Words, effects, upper clips and sounds move with the Video 1 clip under them when you reorder or trim, so a title stays on its shot. The switch is in the Video tab. Hold ` while you move a Video 1 clip to leave them where they are once.

Rolling and slipping

• Roll a cut: drag the small button on a cut. One clip gets longer as the other gets shorter, and nothing else moves: the cut happens earlier or later.
• Slip a clip: hold Alt and drag it. It stays in place and keeps its length, but shows an earlier or later part of its file.

14. Auditions, roles and finer editing

Tools for finer work, as in Final Cut: trying several takes in one place, moving things by single frames, trimming a cut closely, and keeping a big project in order.

Auditions: trying takes

An audition is one clip that holds other takes to try in its place, such as two versions of a line or the same clip with two looks. It shows ⧉ on the timeline.

1. Pick a clip and press Y (or “Make it an audition”, Clip, Takes). It becomes one with a copy of itself.
2. Change that take’s settings, press “Try a copy” for another, or “Add a file as a take”.
3. Step through them with Y or Ctrl+→ / ← (‹ ›), or press one in the list. Each keeps its own file, length and settings.
4. “Keep this one” ends the audition with the take showing. “Remove this take” drops the one showing.

Moving precisely

• Nudge (, ., or the −10 −1 +1 +10 buttons in Fine moves): the picked items move a frame earlier or later (with Shift, ten); a picked keyframe moves too. Not Video 1’s clips.
• Position tool (P, or Clip, Fine moves): drag a Video 1 clip anywhere. It leaves a gap where it was and covers what it lands on, and nothing else moves. P or Esc puts it away.
• Move a cut to the playhead (Shift+X, or “Nearest cut here” in Fine moves): the cut on Video 1 nearest the playhead rolls to it.
• Type a time (Ctrl+P, or press the time beside the play button): 1:05.5 goes there; +2 or −0.5 moves the playhead, or the picked items off Video 1, by that much; 12f is twelve frames. Ctrl+L sets how long the picked item lasts.
• Pick what is under the playhead (C): the top clip there.
• Hold ` while you move or trim a Video 1 clip: what is connected to it stays where it is.

Trimming a cut closely

• Precision editor: double-click the button on a cut (or Transition, “Precision editor”). The first clip is above with the rest of its file after it, the second below with the part of its file before it, so you see what could be shown. Drag the first’s end or the second’s start to trim that clip, or the middle bar to roll the cut. , and . (or ← →) move the chosen one a frame, ↑ ↓ go to the cut before or after, Space plays round the cut, Esc closes it.
• Through edits: a cut between two pieces of one take (the same file going on, the same settings, no transition) shows a dotted line. It changes nothing you see. “Join the two pieces” (Transition) makes them one clip again.

Groups

Groups (Ctrl+G): pick a few things off Video 1 (words, upper clips, sounds) and group them; a drag on one moves them all. A line over them shows the group. Ctrl+Shift+G or Ungroup (Track) takes them apart.

Keeping a project in order

• Roles (Video tab): every sound is Dialogue, Music, Effects or a role of your own (“New role…”, or the Role list in a clip’s Sound group). Sound clips take their role’s colour. Each role has a volume, M (mute), S (solo) and ◎ to pick all its clips. “Each role on its own tracks” puts Dialogue on the first sound tracks, then Music, and so on. A video’s sound is Dialogue, a sound effect Effects, any other sound file Music, until you change it. Export can save one sound file per role.
• Ratings and keywords (the viewer): mark a part with In and Out (or none, for the whole file), then ★ Favourite, ✕ Reject, Unrate or Keyword…. They show as coloured strips on the viewer’s bar and as chips under it: press a chip to mark that part again, × to take it off. The Media list’s choice then shows Favourites, Rejected, All but rejected, or each keyword.
• Collections: with a search typed or a choice made in the Media list, ☆ keeps it under a name in the list. × beside it forgets it (the files stay).
• Snapshots (project menu, “Keep a snapshot”): a dated copy of the project goes into the list, and you go on in this one. Take one before a big change, to go back to it.

15. Joined clips, multicam and stabilising

Three tools for bigger edits: put several clips into one that you can still open and change, cut between cameras that filmed the same moment, and take the shake out of a clip filmed by hand. All three work here in the browser and need Chrome or Edge.

Joined clips

A joined clip packs a part of the timeline (clips, words, stickers, sound) into one clip, marked ◫. Use it to tidy a busy timeline, to move or copy a finished part as one piece, or to put one filter or speed on a whole part at once. What it was made of is kept, so you can open it again later and change it.

1. Pick the items to join (Shift or Ctrl with a click, or Shift and drag a box over empty timeline). At least one must be a Video 1 clip, and the Video 1 clips must be next to each other.
2. Press “Join into one clip” in the Edit tab (Alt+G). It takes a moment: the clip is made as a video here and kept with the project, named “Joined clip 1”, “Joined clip 2”…
3. To change it, double click it, or pick it and press “Open it” in Clip, Joined clip. Its items show on a timeline of their own, and a bar over the picture says “Inside” and its name.
4. Change anything (cut, move, add words, colour…). Undo works inside as usual.
5. Press Done on the bar over the picture. The clip is made again with your changes, and every copy of it on the timeline shows them. If it got longer, a copy that ran to its end grows with it. One Undo after Done brings the old one back.

• Break apart (Clip, Joined clip) puts the items it was made of back on the timeline in its place, as they were. It works on a joined clip on Video 1 that is whole (not trimmed), at its own speed and not backwards; otherwise open it instead.
• While a joined clip is open export, a new project, opening or saving a project wait until you press Done.
• Make it again: if the page was closed while a joined clip was open, its changes are kept, but the clip still shows the old video and says “Changed inside since it was made”. Press “Make it again”.
• The transitions at its two ends go when you join. Clips joined before this version are plain videos and can’t be opened.

Multicam

For a moment filmed by two or more cameras at once (a talk, a song, an interview from two sides). The cameras become one clip, marked ▦ with the angle showing, and you choose which camera is seen at each moment, while the sound stays from one of them.

1. Put one clip from each camera on the timeline (2 to 9, each a video file at its own speed). Where you put them doesn’t matter much.
2. Pick them all and press “Multicam” (in the Edit tab with several picked).
3. It listens to their sound and lines them up, so a clap heard on two cameras happens at the same moment. A camera with no sound stays where you placed it; the message says how many were lined up by sound. They become one clip on Video 1, showing the first camera, with the first camera’s sound on a sound track below (the clips themselves are muted).
4. Press “Show the angles” in Clip, Multicam. The angle viewer opens beside the picture with every camera at the playhead. The one being seen has a yellow edge; the one heard is green with ♪.
5. Play, and press an angle (or 1–9) whenever you want to switch: the clip is cut at the playhead and goes on from that camera. Keep going to the end, then fix any cut by hand as usual.

• Whole clip: tick it in the angle viewer (or hold Shift with a press) to switch the whole piece instead of cutting.
• Change a piece later: pick it and press another angle in Clip, Multicam’s list.
• Sound from (Clip, Multicam) picks the camera whose sound is heard all the way through, for example the one with the best microphone.
• A camera that stopped: a camera that wasn’t filming at the playhead can’t be cut to. If it stops before the piece ends, the clip goes back to the angle it had at that point.
• × on the angle viewer closes it; the clip stays a multicam.

Stabilise

Takes the shake out of a clip filmed by hand. It works out how the picture moves from frame to frame, then moves each frame back so the picture holds still, zooming in a little so the moved edges don’t show.

1. Pick a video clip and open Motion, Stabilise.
2. Press Stabilise. It looks at the clip (up to 4 minutes at a time; split a longer one first). This takes a short while.
3. Play it. The group now has a Stabilise tick box to switch it off and on, and says how much it zooms in (30% at most).
4. Move Smooth: more holds the picture stiller but zooms in further; less keeps more of the picture. If the shake is too big to take out with 30%, it says so and takes out what it can.
5. Untick Steady the turning too to steady only the up, down and side to side shake and leave the tilt as it was.

• Look again works the shake out anew, for example after the clip was made longer.
• It steadies shake, not a walk or a pan on purpose: a slow, smooth move is kept, only the jitter goes. It doesn’t fix blur in the frames themselves.
• The preview and the finished video both show it.

On a phone

• Join: tap a clip, tap “Pick more”, tap the others, then tap “Join” in the bar.
• Open a joined clip: tap it, then “Open” in the bar. Change what you like; the bar over the picture says you are inside. Tap its Done to go back out. Break apart and Make it again are in Clip, Joined clip.
• Multicam: put the cameras’ clips on the timeline, tap one, “Pick more”, tap the rest, then “Multicam”.
• Cut between cameras: tap the multicam clip, then “Angles”. The angles fill the top of the screen and the picture sits under them. Tap ▶, and tap an angle each time you want to cut to it. Tick “Whole clip” first to switch the whole clip instead; × closes the angles.
• Sound from and changing a piece’s angle later: tap the piece, then Clip, Multicam.
• Stabilise: tap the clip, then Motion, Stabilise, and tap Stabilise in the sheet. Swipe the sheet down to see the steadied picture.

16. Quick tools: reframe, retouch, AutoCut and more

Quicker tools, as in CapCut and InShot. They all work out what they need here in the browser, from your files: nothing is sent anywhere.

Auto reframe

Turns a wide video into a tall one (or the other way) without losing what matters: the clip fills the picture, and the frame moves to follow what is going on.

1. Pick a clip on Video 1 and open Motion, Reframe.
2. Press a shape, such as 9:16: the whole video becomes that shape, and every clip of Video 1 is looked at and reframed. Or press Reframe this clip for one clip, once the video has its shape.
3. Keep a thing in view…, then press something in the picture: the frame follows that one thing through the clip instead.
4. Follows sets how quickly the frame moves (for the next reframe). Framing moves it by hand; its keyframes are under Keyframes. Middle again takes the framing off.

• It follows what moves, and failing that what has detail; at a cut inside a clip the frame jumps instead of gliding.
• Not for a clip that is turned, mirrored, zoomed, backwards or in a split screen.

Retouch, less noise and flicker

• Retouch (Colour section): Smooth skin softens skin and keeps eyes, hair and edges sharp; Brighten skin lifts it. It works on whatever has the colour of skin, anywhere in the picture; no face is looked for.
• Clean up, Less noise smooths the grain of a dark room and keeps edges.
• Clean up, Remove flicker measures the light of every frame once, then evens it out: lights that pulse on camera, a timelapse that jumps in brightness. Strength: more evens out slower changes of light too. A slow change, such as a cloud, stays.

Motion blur

Motion, Motion blur: what moves is smeared a little, as a camera does, by blending the frames round each moment. A sped-up clip blurs more. Shutter sets how far. It shows in the finished video, not in the preview.

Smart tools (Clip section)

• Split at scene changes: looks for the moments the picture changes all at once and cuts the clip there. A light coming on or a flicker doesn’t count.
• Auto velocity: the clip slows down on each beat marker and speeds up between them, at the same length, so it stays on the music. Mark the beats first (Sound, Beats and silences); with none it pulses every ¾ s. Its speed parts are under Speed; “Steady again” takes it off.
• Make a short (a clip over 25 s): press 15, 30, 45 or 60 s. It picks the parts with the most movement and sound, cuts at scene changes, and opens them as a new 9:16 project, reframed. Your long project stays in the project list.

AutoCut

Media tab, AutoCut…: your videos and pictures cut to the beat of a song, as a new project.

1. Tick the files to use, pick the music (or none, for a steady pace), how long, a cut on every beat, every 2nd or every 4th, what goes between shots, and the shape.
2. Press Make it. It listens for the beat, takes a different part of each video every time, and puts the song under it with the beats marked.

• The project you were in stays as it was, in the project list.
• With transitions, each shot still ends on its beat.

Styling some of the words

1. Pick words on the Text row and drag over part of them in the Words box.
2. Under the box, Picked words: a colour, B (bold), A+ / A− (size), Highlight (a strong colour, bold and a little bigger), Plain. With nothing picked, Plain clears every part.

• Typing keeps the styles with their letters; what you type takes the style of the letter before it.
• Captions: under Caption style, Key words stand out highlights the longest word and any number in every caption; All plain takes it off.

Progress bar and logo

• Progress bar: Stickers, Moving: Progress bar, Progress in steps or Progress line. It goes along the bottom for the whole video and fills as it plays. Drag it to the top if you like; Steps sets how many parts; Last the whole video fits it again after the video got longer.
• Logo: Stickers, Yours, Add a logo…: the picture goes in the top right for the whole video, a little see-through. A picture on a track above also has Whole video in its Size group.

Recording: teleprompter, countdown, screen and camera

• Teleprompter and countdown… (Media, Record): type what you will say, its speed and size, and tick whether it shows, whether 3, 2, 1 comes first and whether the camera is mirrored. These are kept for next time.
• While recording the camera or a voice-over, the words show at the top of the page (from the countdown on, so you can read the first line) and scroll once it starts; read them at the yellow line. On a phone the camera’s picture is under them and Stop at the bottom. − and + change the speed, ⏸ pauses, ⤒ goes back to the start. They are not in the recording, and neither is the mirror.
• Screen and camera (on a computer): records both at once. The screen goes on Video 1 and you go over it in a circle in the bottom right, from the same moment; drag the circle to move it.
• Screen recording and camera (on a phone): a phone’s browser can’t record its screen, so first record it with the phone’s own screen recorder (Android: Quick Settings, Screen record; iPhone: Control Centre, Screen Recording). Then pick that video here: it goes on Video 1 and plays while the front camera films you, and you go over it in a circle. It stops by itself where the video ends. Headphones keep the video’s sound out of your recording.
• Esc during the countdown stops before anything is recorded.

17. Copying settings

Copy the settings of one clip or words onto others, so they look alike without setting each one again: the same colour on every shot, the same look on every title.

1. Pick the clip or words whose settings you want and press “Copy these settings” in the Settings group (Ctrl+Shift+C).
2. Pick another one. Its Settings group now lists what can be pasted: filter and colours, zoom and turn, crop, mask, size and place, fades, sound, look of the words, animation.
3. Untick what you don’t want and press Paste (Ctrl+Shift+V pastes everything). With several picked, it goes onto each of them.

Put back to plain

In the same group, choose which settings (or all of them) and press Reset. They go back to how they are on a new clip; where the clip sits and its size stay.

18. Export

Export makes the finished video file from the project, here on your device. Nothing is uploaded.

Making the file

1. Open the Export tab, or press Export in the top bar.
2. Pick where it is going (a preset), or set the file yourself below.
3. Read the grey line: it says what the file will be.
4. Press Export. Chrome asks where to save it; other browsers download it when it is done.

The choices

• Preset: sets everything in one go: YouTube, Reels / Shorts / TikTok, Instagram post, Square, WhatsApp status, Small for a chat, GIF. A preset with a shape changes the video’s shape too. “Save these choices…” keeps your own.
• Several…: tick a few presets and press “Export these”: one file for each, made one after another. Chrome asks once for a folder; other browsers download them. The Export tab and the video’s shape are as they were afterwards.
• File: MP4 (plays everywhere), MOV, WebM or GIF. Size: Full, 4K, 1440p, 1080p, 720p, 480p (only the ones the video is big enough for). Quality: Small file, Balanced, Best, or Custom with your own megabits a second.
• Frames a second and Codec (H.264, VP9, AV1… whichever this browser can make) are for this file only. H.264 plays on the most devices.
• The grey line above Export says what the file will be: size, frames a second, codecs, length and about how big. An orange line under it warns of anything a player may not open.
• Captions (shown when there are any): As they are, In the picture, A .srt file beside it, or Both.
• Only the range: a tick box that appears when a range is marked.
• More: Title, Made by and Comment are written into the file. “Cover: this frame” makes the frame at the playhead the cover (put into an MP4 or WebM, and saved as a picture beside it). “Packed by” picks the graphics chip or the processor. “See-through background” (WebM) leaves nothing behind the clips. “Tell me when it’s done” plays a sound, and shows a notification when the tab is in the background.

Before, during and after

• Before it starts a short list appears if something will be left out or may look or sound wrong (hidden tracks, items switched off, muted tracks, gaps, small clips, the limiter off). “Export anyway” goes on.
• While it is made: the percent, the time so far and left, the speed and the frame being made. “Hide” puts the window away so you can see the editor (it can’t be changed meanwhile); press anywhere to bring it back. The tab’s name shows the percent, and the screen stays awake.
• When it is done: the file’s size, length and codecs, how long it took, “Download again”, and “Share” on a phone.

Other things to save

• Save this frame as a picture: a PNG of the frame at the playhead, for a thumbnail.
• Chapters: Video tab, Markers, “Copy as chapters” copies the named markers as a list (0:00 Opening…) to paste into a video’s description. Chapters are not written into the file itself.
• Save only the sound: the video’s sound alone, as WAV or, where the browser can, M4A, Opus or FLAC (the list beside the button). One per role saves a file for each role that is heard (Dialogue, Music, Effects…).

The video’s shape

The shape of the video (16:9 for YouTube, 9:16 for Reels and Shorts, 1:1, 4:5), what shows around a clip that doesn’t fill it (black, the clip blurred, a colour, two colours or a pattern), and frames a second are in the Video tab, under “Shape and frames”.

The Video tab folds into groups: Shape and frames (open at first), Preview (picture aids, Compare), Timeline (connected clips, the range, markers), Mixer and roles and Index. Press a group’s name to open it. Picking something on the timeline opens the Edit tab; Done (or a press on nothing) goes back to the tab you were on.

19. On a phone

On a phone the editor changes shape: the picture is on top, the timeline under it, and a bar of buttons at the bottom. Settings open in a sheet that slides up. Everything is done by tapping and dragging.

Moving around

• The playhead stays in the middle; drag the timeline under it to move through the video. Pinch to zoom; Fit shows the whole video beside the playhead.
• + after the last clip on Video 1 adds files.
• Type a time: tap the time beside the play button.
• Bigger or smaller picture: drag the small bar above the play button up or down. A double tap on it puts it back.
• A bigger picture still: the square button beside Fit, or a double tap on the picture, hides the timeline.

Picking and editing

• Tap a clip to pick it. Hold it for a moment to lift it, then drag. Drag the picked clip’s ends to trim.
• Two fingers on the picture size the picked words or clip.
• Pick several: pick one, tap “Pick more” in the bar, then tap the others. The bar then has Delete, On / off, and what fits them: Transition, Group (or Ungroup), Same loudness, Sync by sound (two with sound), Join and Multicam.
• Tap the button on a cut to choose a transition.
• Fine moves (Clip, or in the bar for words and stickers): −10 −1 +1 +10 move the picked item by frames; on a Video 1 clip, “Nearest cut here” and the Position tool (tap it again to put it away).

The bar and the sheet

• The top bar has the project’s name, Undo, Redo, ⋯ (Guide, History, Start over) and Export.
• Tracks with nothing on them are thin, so the ones with clips get the room; they grow when something goes on them.
• The Media list has a word under each button: Add (to the end), On top (a track above, at the playhead), Save (a recording), Remove.
• The Export sheet starts short: the preset, the quality, what the file will be, and Export. “More choices” shows the rest (file type, size, frames a second, codec, name, info, a frame or the sound alone).
• The bar at the bottom shows what you can add (Add files, Media, Record, Text, Effects, Marker, Shape, Export) or, when something is picked, Done, Split, the sections (Clip, Colour, Sound, Motion), then Copy, Delete, Pick more and On / off. Tap a section to open its most used group in the sheet; the row at the sheet’s top has the section’s other groups. Words, effects and stickers show their three most used groups after Split and the rest at the end. Where the bar fades at an end, swipe it for more.
• A group opens in a sheet: the row at its top steps to the other groups and the “i” explains it. Words don’t bring up the keyboard by themselves: tap the box to type over them.
• The first time three short tips show the way: add files, tap a clip, Export. × puts them away for good.
• A short buzz (Android) when you split or delete, lift a clip by holding it, or a dragged clip catches on an edge, the playhead or a marker.
• On its side, an open sheet is on the right, with the picture, the play bar and a short timeline on the left.
• The sheet: swipe its top down to make it small (only its name and row, so the picture and timeline show), down again to close it, up for more. When its settings are scrolled to the top, pulling them down works too. Tap its top to make it small or bring it back. While it is open, the picture sits above it.

Where things are

• Stickers, drawing, split screen and slideshow are in Media, in the bottom bar. While drawing, the pen’s bar sits above the picture; tap Done to finish.
• The file viewer (to add a part of a file with Insert, Append, Overwrite or On top): tap a file’s picture or name in Media, or pick a video or sound clip and tap “Match frame”. Tap the picture to play or stop; ‹ › step a frame; In, Out and All are on a row of their own; drag an end of the lit part on the bar to move it. Favourite, Reject and Keyword are behind the tag button at the top. The clip’s bar goes away while the viewer is open.
• A joined clip has “Open” in the bar, and a multicam clip “Angles”: the angle viewer takes the top of the screen; tap an angle to cut to it. Stabilise is in Motion. Step by step: Joined clips, multicam and stabilising, “On a phone”.
• Share to it: once installed as an app on Android, Video appears in the Share menu for videos, sound and pictures, so a clip from the gallery opens straight in the editor.

What needs a computer

Rolling a cut, slipping, sliding and stretching a clip, and the fade dots and volume line, need a mouse. The settings in the sheet do the same jobs for fades and volume.

20. Keys

Keys for working faster on a computer. Most of them also have a button. Press ? in the editor for a window with every key, by kind (? or Esc closes it).

On a Mac, use Cmd in place of Ctrl.

21. Good to know

Your files and your work

• Nothing is uploaded. Videos, sound, pictures and the finished file stay on your device. The page can’t send anything anywhere.
• Your work is kept in the browser, per project, as you go; there is no Save button to press. Clearing the browser’s site data removes it, so save a project as a file now and then for a backup.
• Your files come back by themselves after a reload or when switching projects: the editor keeps a copy of each file you add in this browser’s own storage, on this device only (nothing is uploaded). It takes as much room as the files themselves; Start over, deleting a project, or removing a file no project uses frees it (a removed file’s copy goes the next time the editor opens, so Undo can still bring it back).
• If the browser has no room for a copy, a message says so, and after a reload that file shows red with a yellow bar: press “Find them…” and pick it again (on Chrome on a computer, one press lets it read the file again).
• A cleaned sound is a file kept in this browser with the project, like a recording (and so is a joined clip). Save a cleaned sound from the Media list if you want it elsewhere.

Browsers

• Chrome or Edge work best. Other browsers record the export while it plays, which takes as long as the video. Safari can’t do some colour changes or the Blur transition.
• Joining clips, multicam, stabilising and following something need Chrome or Edge.

Looks and speed

• Backwards clips and playing backwards with J are choppy in the preview; the exported file is smooth.
• Heavy effects (RGB split, VHS, Glitch) make large exports slower. On a slow device, lower Preview quality in the Video tab while you edit.
• Strobe and Flash blink the picture white; keep their strength low.
• Emoji look as your device draws them, and a font you added is only in this browser: on another device the words show in plain letters until you add it there.
• A blurred spot hides everything under it, words on lower rows too.

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