Editing

Tools

The tool buttons are in the timeline toolbar. Each has a key:

S turns snapping on and off. Whether snapping starts on is set in Settings → General.

Keyboard shortcuts

This is the list from Settings → Shortcuts (⌘,), generated from the app's source.

Also available

Selecting

• Click a clip to select it; ⇧-click or ⌘-click adds it to the selection or takes it out. ⌘A selects everything, Esc nothing.
• With the Selection tool, drag on an empty part of the timeline to draw a rectangle: every clip it touches is selected. Hold ⇧ to add to the current selection.
• Clicking empty timeline clears the selection. Clicking the ruler only moves the playhead.
• Linked clips (a picture and its sound) move and delete together. ⌘L links or unlinks the selection, ⌘G and ⇧⌘G group and ungroup.
• ⌥-drag a clip to duplicate it. ⌘C, ⌘X and ⌘V copy, cut and paste at the playhead.

Trimming

• Drag the start or end edge of a clip to trim it. You can extend a clip only as far as its source media goes.
• ⌘K splits at the playhead: on the tracks of the selected clips, or on every track when nothing is selected.
• Q removes everything from the previous edit point to the playhead, W from the playhead to the next one, and closes the gap (ripple trim).
• Use the Slip, Rolling edit and Slide tools for fine changes, and ⌥← / ⌥→ to nudge the selected clips one frame.
• ↑ and ↓ jump to the previous and next edit point, ← and → step one frame (five with ⇧).
• Esc cancels a drag or trim in progress.

Ripple, lift and extract

• ⌫ deletes the selected clips and leaves a gap. ⇧⌫ ripple deletes: the gap closes on their tracks. Settings → General → Delete closes gaps (ripple) by default swaps the two.
• Mark in and out with I and O, then ; lifts that range (removes it on every track and leaves the gap) and ' extracts it (removes it and closes the gap). Script lines and markers after the range move with it.
• / plays from in to out, ⌥X clears both marks.

Source monitor and three-point editing

1. Double-click a clip in the Media panel. It opens in the source monitor, a tab over the viewer.
2. Play it with Space, and mark the part you want with I and O (the buttons under the picture do the same).
3. Put the timeline playhead where the clip should go and press , to insert (later material on every unlocked track moves along) or . to overwrite (it replaces what is there).
4. Esc goes back to the timeline. The source monitor remembers its position when you come back.

The clip menu

Right-click a clip for: Split, Duplicate, Split at shot changes (video), a transition from the previous clip (crossfade or dip to black) or Remove transition, Fade in and out, Mute or Unmute, Detach audio, Zoom in here, Hold this frame, Nest… (or Open nested sequence), Enable or Disable, Link selected or Unlink, Ask the agent about this…, Delete and Ripple delete.

• Split at shot changes finds the cuts inside a long take or a finished film and splits the clip (and its linked sound) there.
• Disable (⇧E) keeps a clip on the timeline but unseen and unheard.
• Fade in and out adds half-second fades at both ends; Zoom in here adds a push-in where you right-clicked (see zooms).
• Detach audio moves a video clip's sound onto its own audio track and mutes the video clip.

Speed, ramps and frame holds

• Set a constant speed from 0.1× to 8× in the inspector's Source section.
• The Speed ramp section has four one-click ramps: Speed up, Slow down, Montage (fast in the middle) and Slow-mo hit. It ramps the part between the in and out points if they fall inside the clip, otherwise the whole clip. Later clips on the track move to make room.
• Hold this frame in the clip menu holds the frame where you right-clicked for two seconds; later clips on that track move along.

Markers

• M drops a marker at the playhead. ⇧M and ⇧⌘M jump to the next and previous marker.
• Click a marker on the ruler to jump to it, double-click it to remove it.
• The markers list shows every marker in time order: click the time to jump, type over the name to rename it. It is in the inspector when nothing is selected, and docked beside the viewer in the Review workspace. Clear removes them all, or only the beat markers when there are others too.
• Markers come in four colours. Beat detection and chapters add their own markers (green Beat markers, chapter markers).

Sequences and nesting

A project can hold several timelines (sequences). The open one is the one you edit, and what agents edit.

• The sequence tabs above the timeline switch between them; the + button makes a new one.
• Right-click a tab to rename, duplicate (to try a different cut) or delete it.
• Nest… in the clip menu moves the selected clips into a new sequence that takes their place as one clip, like Premiere's Nest. Double-click a nested clip to open its sequence; when you go back, the nested clip plays the updated version.
• A sequence that is open or nested somewhere cannot be deleted.

Editing by transcript

The Transcript panel turns speech into text you can edit. Transcription runs on your Mac with Whisper, or with OpenAI if you choose it (see local and cloud models).

1. Pick a media item and press Transcribe.
2. Click a word to jump to it. Drag or ⇧-click to select words.
3. Press ⌫ (or Cut selection) to cut them from the timeline on every track, closing the gaps.
4. Remove fillers cuts um, uh, erm and similar in one go; the button shows how many it found.

The search box ("Find where they talk about…") searches by meaning with the text model, not only exact words. Click a result to jump there and mark it in to out.

Track heights

Drag the bottom edge of a track header to make the track taller or shorter; double-click the edge to reset it. The heights you set are kept per project. Each workspace has its own heights for video, audio and text tracks, and tracks you resized keep yours when you switch.