Shorts editor
Fine-tune the clips cut from a long video: trim, framing, caption style and transcript fixes, then export a ready MP4.
Overview
After Shorts analyses a video, every clip opens in the editor. It looks like a small video studio: your clips on the left, the vertical preview in the middle, caption styles on the right and a timeline along the bottom.
- Pick a clip
- Trim on the timeline
- Choose framing
- Style captions
- Export clip
Which videos you can use
On Shorts, press Upload video or drop a video file (MP4, MOV, MKV or WebM, up to 5 GB) on the box. Nova and Apex take videos up to 4 hours, so full podcasts fit; Forge takes up to 4 hours. Videos over 40 minutes cost extra, see Plans and free runs. Before it starts, tick I own this video or have permission to use it under the box. If it isn't ticked, nothing starts and the checkbox is highlighted. We save when you confirmed.
- Good to use: videos you filmed, videos from your own channel, podcasts or webinars you recorded, and videos whose owner gave you permission to reuse them.
- Not allowed: someone else's video just because it's public online. Reposting it can get your clips removed and your social accounts flagged, and repeated copyright notices close your account here.
Your clips stay private. Shorts clips are never shown on Explore. Original videos are deleted within 24 hours and clips within 48 hours, so download the ones you want to keep. The Copyright and DMCA policy explains how rights holders can ask us to remove content.
Spoken language
Pick the language spoken in the video next to the upload box. Picking it gives the most accurate transcript, and so the best clips and captions. Auto-detect works for most videos.
- Auto-detect listens at several points across the whole video, so a music intro or a one-line greeting in another language doesn't decide the language.
- Videos that switch language, for example Hindi in one part and English in the next: leave it on Auto-detect. Each part is written in its own language. English words inside a Hindi sentence are written in Devanagari.
- Hindi is always written in Devanagari, even when it sounds close to Urdu. Pick Urdu to get Urdu script.
- Nova and Apex auto-detect Hindi and English only. For any other language, pick it from the list.
Fix a misheard word. In the editor, click the word, fix the spelling and press Enter. The exported captions use your fix.
Plans and free runs
Every plan gives you free videos each day. When they're used up you can keep going: each extra video costs tokens. Free runs reset at 00:00 UTC.
| Plan | Best for | Free videos per day | Each video after that |
|---|
| Nova | Long videos and podcasts, in English or Hindi | 1 | 150 tokens |
| Apex | Hindi, Hinglish and videos that switch language | 1 | 500 tokens |
| Forge | Short English videos on a budget | 3 | 60 tokens |
- The plan picker shows Free while you have free videos left, and the token price once you don't.
- If a video fails or you delete it before it finishes, you get the free run or the tokens back.
- Exporting clips in the editor never costs tokens.
- Long videos: the price covers a video up to 40 minutes. Your daily free videos are free at any length, up to the plan maximum. On a paid video, each started hour beyond 40 minutes adds 400 tokens. A 2-hour paid video adds 800 tokens. The upload box shows the extra cost and asks before it charges.
Which plan to pick. Nova and Apex transcribe with Azure AI Speech, which is fast on hour-long videos and handles Hindi, Hinglish and videos that switch between languages. Nova then ranks clips by our virality score; Apex also asks an AI model to re-rank them, so its picks are the strongest. Forge transcribes on our own server, which is accurate on English but slower on long videos. When you pick a language other than English on Forge, the upload box suggests Nova.
Out of tokens?. Daily free tokens top up at midnight UTC, or buy a token pack from Pricing.
Clips and transcript
- Magic Clips lists every clip, best first. The badge shows the virality score: green from 80, amber from 50.
- Active snippet follows the line being spoken, so you can read along while the clip plays.
- Click any word to jump to it and fix the spelling. Press
Enter to save; the fix is used in the exported captions. - The Transcript tab shows every word of the clip at once.
Preview and framing
| Option | What it does |
|---|
| Single | Keeps one face in the centre of the frame. |
| Split | Stacks two speakers, one above the other. Only for 9:16. |
| Auto | Picks single or split from the faces it finds. |
| 9:16 / 1:1 / 16:9 | Shorts, Reels and TikTok; square posts; YouTube. |
Safe zone. The dashed box on the preview marks where app buttons and titles won't cover your captions.
Caption styles
- Pick a preset in Subtitle Studio: Hormozi, Beast, Neon or Clean. Each card shows a sample.
- Placement moves captions to the top, middle or bottom. For any other height, drag the caption up or down in the preview or use the Custom height slider; the reset arrow goes back to the preset position.
- Caption size scales the words from 80% to 140%. The preview shows the exact size the exported video uses, and very long words shrink to stay inside the frame.
- Colours changes the word colour, adds an outline in any colour, and sets the background colour and opacity (0% hides it). The reset arrow next to a colour goes back to the preset.
- Emoji on key words and Keyword colours (green for numbers and money, red for warnings) are added to the exported video.
- Reset styles brings back the clip's saved style.
Trimming on the timeline
| Action | Result |
|---|
| Drag an edge of the orange clip bar | Moves the start or end of the clip. |
| Type in Start or End | Sets the cut to the exact second. |
| Snap to words | Moves both edges to the nearest word, so no word is cut in half. |
| Click anywhere on the tracks | Moves the playhead there. |
The timeline shows 6 seconds before and after the AI's cut, so you can make a clip longer as well as shorter. Clips must be under 180 seconds.
Export and post
Export clip saves your changes and renders the MP4; the button turns into Download MP4 when it's ready. Change any setting afterwards and you can export again. Post caption gives you a caption written for YouTube Shorts, TikTok and Instagram Reels, ready to copy.
Changes to trim, framing and style are kept only after you export. Word fixes save straight away.