Editing clips

Every piece that lands on the timeline is a clip. Editing, in the end, means moving those clips around, keeping what works and throwing out what doesn't. This guide covers everything you can do to a clip — from dragging it to undoing a mistake with one key.

A few words come up over and over. The playhead is the red line that runs along the timeline; it marks the moment you're currently looking at, and almost every command acts exactly where that line stands. To trim is to shorten a clip from its start or its end (the source file is never touched — you simply show less of it). And don't worry, nothing is permanent: Ctrl+Z is always there.

Moving and trimming

The two moves you'll make most often are sliding a clip along in time and dragging its edge. Both are just a drag — the only difference is where on the clip you grab it.

• Move. Grab the clip anywhere in the middle and drag left or right. Drag it up or down and it hops to another track.
• Trim. Move the cursor to the clip's left or right edge — the cursor changes shape. Drag inward to shorten it, outward to lengthen it (as long as there's still footage left in the source).
• It won't stretch any further. That means you've reached the end of the source: a clip is only a window onto the file, and it cannot show frames that don't exist.

Selecting and working in groups

Most commands (delete, copy, duplicate) act on whatever is selected. So getting comfortable with selection is the single biggest time-saver there is.

1. 1

   One clip

   Click it — it lights up, and the properties panel on the right switches to that clip.

2. 2

   Several clips

   Hold Shift or Ctrl and click the others — they join the selection. Ctrl+A grabs everything, Esc clears the selection.

3. 3

   Marquee (rubber-band) select

   Press on an empty spot of the timeline and drag — a dashed rectangle appears. Every clip it touches gets selected. It's the quickest way to grab a lot of clips at once.

4. 4

   Moving the group

   Drag any one of the selected clips and the whole group moves together, keeping the spacing between them. Drag an unselected clip and the selection switches to it — that one moves alone.

Splitting, merging, duplicating

The usual way to lift a good bit out of a long take is to split it. Put the playhead where you want the cut and press S: the clip breaks in two, and from now on each half is its own clip. Select the half you don't want and delete it.

• Merge. Cut it and then changed your mind? Select the neighbouring pieces that came from the same source and press “Merge” — they become a single whole clip again.
• Duplicate (`Ctrl+D`). Drops an exact copy of the selected clip right next to it — handy for repeating a shot, or for making another piece that already has all your settings.
• Copy / paste / cut (`Ctrl+C`, `Ctrl+V`, `Ctrl+X`). Pasting happens at the playhead — so move the playhead to where you want the clip first, then press Ctrl+V.

Deleting, and what “ripple” means

There are two kinds of delete, and the difference matters a lot.

Snapping and markers

Dragging a clip so it touches the next one exactly is almost impossible by hand — you leave a few pixels of gap, and the video flashes black for an instant. That's what snapping is for: as a clip's edge comes near another clip, the playhead, or the start of the timeline, it is pulled in and sticks. A yellow indicator line tells you a snap is happening.

You can switch snapping off with the toggle above the timeline — useful when you deliberately want to nudge a clip a few frames and the snapping keeps fighting you.

A marker is a flag you drop on the timeline — to mark a beat in the music, the moment someone starts speaking, or simply a “come back to this later” note. Put the playhead where you want it and press M; press M again to remove it. The neat part: clips snap to markers exactly as they snap to other clips — so if you lay markers on the beats of your track, your cuts land on the rhythm by themselves.

Linking video and audio

When a video clip and its sound sit on two separate tracks, it's easy to move one and forget the other — and suddenly the lips don't match the words. To prevent that, link them: select both clips and press “Link”.

From then on linked clips move together and delete together — clicking one is enough. When you need them apart again, press “Unlink”.

Made a mistake? Go back

Making mistakes is simply part of editing — so experiment freely. Ctrl+Z undoes the last action and Ctrl+Shift+Z redoes it. A long drag or a slider sweep counts as one step, so a single Ctrl+Z takes back the whole move rather than unwinding it in dozens of tiny nudges.

If you need to go a long way back, don't hammer Ctrl+Z a dozen times: open the “Edit history” menu at the top — it lists every step, and one click jumps you straight to any of them. The very first entry is the project's initial state.