Video Editor

Open a recording in the editor. Every edit is saved separately from your video, so the original file is never modified.

1. Open the Library and select a recording.
2. Click Edit.

Know where each control lives before you start.

• ‣The right side has three tabs: Inspector, Transcript and Beautify.
• ‣In the Inspector, the Tools card holds every tool. It has three groups: Edit (Trim, Cut, Silence, Speed), Enhance (Zoom, Camera, Mixer, Remove Logo, Redact) and Add (Captions, Text, Annotate, Media, Chapters).
• ‣The Camera tile only appears when the recording has a separate webcam track. A small dot on a tile means that tool already has edits on your video.
• ‣The Applied list at the bottom of the Inspector shows every edit you have made. Remove any one of them without losing the rest.
• ‣The top bar has Add Media, Short, Beautify, a ? button, Smart Share and Export.

Scrub to any moment, select a stretch, and zoom the timeline in or out.

1. Click, or drag, on the time ruler (the row of time numbers above the lanes) to move the playhead. The picture follows it.
2. Drag across the lanes below the ruler to select a stretch. A small bar appears on the selection with Cut and Speed.
3. For fine moves, tap ← or → (5 seconds), , or . (one frame), Home or End (start or end). J, K and L play backward, pause and play forward; tap J or L again to go faster.
4. Press ⌘+ and ⌘− to zoom the timeline, ⌘0 to fit it to the window, or ⇧Z to zoom to your selection.

• ‣Each lane has a header on its left. Audio lanes have M (mute) and S (solo), and the camera and overlay lanes have an eye to show or hide them.
• ‣The magnet button, or N, turns snapping on and off. Hold ⌘ while dragging to flip it for that drag.
• ‣When you are zoomed in, a thin overview strip appears above the ruler. Drag its bracket to pan.
• ‣Right-click the timeline for shortcuts to the common actions: Mark Cut Here, Add Chapter Here, Add Zoom Here, Trim Start Here and Trim End Here.
• ‣Drag the divider above the timeline to give it more room. Double-click the divider to reset it.

Remove the slow start and the fumbling at the end. Everything outside the two marks is left out of the exported video.

1. Press T, or click Trim.
2. Move the playhead to where the good part starts. To skip the first 20 seconds, click the time ruler near 0:20, then tap → or ← (5 seconds each) or , and . (one frame each) until the playhead is at 0:20.
3. Click Set In at Playhead (I), or press the letter I on your keyboard. The In point row now shows your time, and the part before the mark will not be in your export.
4. Move the playhead to where the video should end and click Set Out at Playhead (O), or press the letter O. The part after it is left out too.
5. You can also drag the handles at each end of the timeline, or drag the middle of the range to slide it.
6. To undo a trim, click Reset Trim.

Put several recordings in one project and cut them into one video. In 2.0 the timeline is made of clips you can split, trim, reorder and give each its own Look.

1. On the Home screen choose Combine Recordings and pick two or more recordings in the order they should play. Or select them in the Library and choose Edit Together, or click Add Recording in the editor.
2. Press ⌘B to split the clip at the playhead. Drag either end of a clip to trim it.
3. Press Delete to remove the selected clip and close the gap, or ⇧Delete to leave a gap.
4. Drag clips along the clip lane to change their order. ↑ and ↓ jump between edit points.

Add a short effect at the point where two pieces of video meet.

1. Make at least one cut. The Transitions group only appears in the Cut tool once there is a cut to decorate.
2. Pick a tile to put that transition on every cut: Dip to Black, Dip to White, Flash, Zoom Punch, Whip Pan, Crossfade, Wipe or Slide. None removes them.
3. For a single cut, right-click it on the timeline and choose Transition.

Find the quiet pauses and remove them in one click, keeping any you want to keep. This finds stretches with no sound. It does not find words such as “um”.

Want to cut the “ums”? Silence Removal cannot hear words. Use Cut by reading the transcript instead: transcribe, then delete the word.

1. Press S, or click Silence. Quiet stretches are marked on the timeline. If you see none, click Re-detect Silence.
2. Read the summary line. It looks like 3 of 4 selected · saves 5.1s.
3. Untick any pause you want to keep, such as a dramatic beat. Click a row to jump to it and listen.
4. Click Remove N Selected. A note confirms what was removed, with an Undo button.

• ‣Leave Threshold (the sensitivity) as it is the first time. Slide it right to mark more of the recording as silence, and left to mark only the quietest gaps. For experts: it starts at −40 dB and runs from −60 to −20 dB.
• ‣Min duration is how long a gap must last to count. It starts at 0.5 seconds.
• ‣Detect Dead Air also finds pauses of 0.8 to 5 seconds where your voice drops well below how loudly you normally speak, even in a noisy room. It measures loudness only, so it finds pauses, not words like “um”.

Delete words from the transcript and they disappear from the video. It is the way to remove an “um” or a false start.

1. First time only: click the Transcript tab on the right. It is empty until you run it.
2. Pick the language you speak in the language menu. If the tab says Speech Recognition is off, click Open System Settings, allow OwnClip under Privacy & Security, Speech Recognition, then come back.
3. Click Transcribe and wait for the words to appear.
4. Click a word to jump to it in the video. Shift-click another word to select everything between.
5. Press Delete or click Cut to remove those words. To remove a whole line, right-click it and choose Cut This Line. Keep does the opposite: it trims the video down to only your selection.

• ‣Press ⌘F to search the transcript.
• ‣Right-click a line for Play from Here, Edit Line, Cut This Line, Keep Only This Line and Copy Text. Double-click a single word to correct it.

Speed up the slow parts, or slow down the moment people should study.

1. Press P, or click Speed.
2. For the whole clip, drag the Speed slider or tap a preset, then click Apply Global Speed.
3. For one stretch, drag across it on the timeline, choose its speed, and click Add Zone.

• ‣Speed runs from 0.25× (slow motion) to 4×.
• ‣Each zone is listed in the panel, where you can delete it.

Let OwnClip zoom in on the places where you clicked and worked, using the cursor activity it recorded.

Check this first. Smart Zoom needs cursor data, and OwnClip records it by itself during every screen recording on every plan. There is no setting to turn on before you record, and you do not need to do anything special. See Recording for how to record. A video you imported, a phone or tablet recording, or a take whose name starts with “Recovered -” has no cursor data and cannot zoom automatically. You can still zoom those by hand.

1. Press Z, or click the Zoom tile. The tile opens a card called Smart Zoom, with three rows.
2. Switch on Cinematic zoom. OwnClip places zoom moments where you clicked or paused.
3. To change the result, adjust Frequency (Calm, Standard or Punchy), Easing, Transition speed and Default zoom, then click Apply. The button reads Re-run when nothing has changed.
4. Turn on Stay zoomed between moments to pan from one spot to the next instead of zooming back out each time.
5. Click Edit on timeline to adjust a single zoom by hand. Each zoom shows as a small dot near the top edge of the video track.

• ‣The other two rows are separate switches. Mouse cursor draws a larger pointer, and Choose a pointer image swaps in your own picture. Highlight clicks adds a pulse on every click.
• ‣Easing offers Cinematic, Smooth, Snap in, Snap out and Linear. Frequency caps the zooms at 2, 4 or 6 a minute.

Place a zoom exactly where you want it, for as long as you want it.

1. Press Z so the Zoom tool is active.
2. Hold Option and click the spot you want to zoom on, on the video picture above the timeline (not on the timeline itself). OwnClip adds a zoom there that eases in, holds, and eases out.
3. Click the zoom box on the video to select it. Drag inside the box to move it, or drag one of the four round dots on its corners to resize it. A smaller box is a closer zoom.
4. To move a zoom in time, drag its small dot near the top edge of the video track on the timeline. Right-click the dot for Delete Keyframe.

• ‣Other ways to add one: right-click the timeline and choose Add Zoom Here, or click the + next to Apply in the Smart Zoom card.
• ‣A box as large as the whole frame means no zoom.

Point at things with arrows, boxes, highlights and numbered steps that appear exactly when you want them.

1. Click Annotate in the Add group.
2. Pick a tool: Arrow, 2-Arrow, Line, Box, Ellipse, Highlight, Pen or Step.
3. Drag on the video where the mark goes. The tool stays active, so move the playhead and draw the next one.
4. Press Esc, or click the tool again, to stop drawing.

• ‣Each mark has its own bar on the timeline. Drag the bar to move it in time, or drag an edge to change how long it shows.
• ‣Add Emoji… opens the emoji picker.
• ‣The All annotations list shows every mark. Click a row to select it and jump the playhead there. A selected mark has Thickness, Dashed and Fill controls and a Remove button.

Bring in other media, either spliced into the video or floating on top of it.

1. Click the + in the timeline toolbar. (Add Media in the top bar opens the same panels.)
2. Choose how it should go in. Insert at Playhead… splices it into the video. Overlay on Top (PIP)… floats it above. Audio (Music / Voiceover)… adds a sound track. Text & Titles… opens the text panel. Media Library… lets you browse.
3. Pick the file. It lands at the playhead.

• ‣An inserted piece pushes everything after it later, like a splice. An overlay never moves anything, because it sits on its own lane.

Layer a video, logo or picture above your recording, with its own position, size and opacity.

1. Choose Overlay on Top (PIP)… from the + menu, or click Add Picture-in-Picture in the Media panel.
2. Click the overlay on the timeline. Pick a corner with the arrow buttons, or the centre with the circle.
3. Adjust Size, Opacity and Corner radius. Turn on Fill frame (crop to fit) to crop the picture to its box.
4. For a video overlay, turn on Play this clip’s audio and set Clip volume.

• ‣You can have up to three overlay lanes. To add a fourth, merge or clear one first.
• ‣If your recording captured a webcam as its own track, a pinned Camera lane sits above them. Its eye button shows or hides it.

Mark the sections of a long recording so viewers can jump between them.

1. Press H, or click Chapters.
2. Move the playhead to where a section starts and click Add Chapter Here. Right-clicking the timeline works too.
3. Rename the chapter in the list.

• ‣Press ⇧← and ⇧→ to jump between chapters.
• ‣Right-click a chapter marker for Jump to Chapter, Rename Chapter… and Delete Chapter.
• ‣Chapters are written into the exported file, for players that show them.

Choose how you and your screen share the frame, one stretch of the video at a time.

1. Click Camera in the Enhance group.
2. Pick a layout: Bubble, Full Screen, Side by Side, Screen Only, Floating, Presenter, Screen Focus, Perspective or Split Cards.
3. Move the playhead to another stretch and pick a different one. Press ⌥S or click Add layout change at playhead to split a part first.

Re-time a layout change, swap one layout for another, or choose how each part enters.

1. Drag the edge of a part on the camera lane to move the switch.
2. Right-click a part to pick a different layout, or remove it to merge it into its neighbour.
3. Choose how a part enters: Morph, Cut, Dissolve, Slide, Push or Dip. Each boundary has its own setting.

Let OwnClip lay out the whole clip for you as a first pass.

1. Click Camera, then Auto Layouts.
2. Review the parts it adds. They are ordinary parts, so drag, retype or delete any of them.
3. To undo the whole run, use the banner it leaves behind.

• ‣It reads the transcript and your cursor activity on your Mac. You are full-frame to open, the screen takes over once you start clicking and typing, and you appear beside it while you point at something.
• ‣Changes land in the gaps between words, and it holds itself to about four changes a minute so the result does not flicker.

Balance your voice against the sound your computer played, or silence one without touching the other.

1. Press M to open the Audio Mixer.
2. Recordings that captured both mic and computer sound open already split into a Mic track and a System Audio track. If you see Split into Mic + System tracks on the Original Audio strip, click it. Split separates your voice (Mic) from your computer’s sound (System Audio), so you can change one without the other.
3. Drag across part of a waveform to silence only that stretch. Right-click a clip for Mute Segment or Unmute Segment.

• ‣Each track has M and S buttons. Option-click S to solo only that track.

Make speech clearer and more even, and mix music or a voiceover underneath it.

1. Press A to open the mixer on the Original Audio strip.
2. Choose a Tone (Off, Voice, Podcast or Music), raise Reduce Noise, and choose Even Out Volume (Off, Light, Normal or Strong).
3. Press and hold Hold to Compare to hear your original without those changes.
4. To add music or a voiceover, click Add Audio. Set its Volume, fades and pan.

• ‣Clean Up Voice removes background noise from a voice track with an on-device engine, in one step you can undo. It lives on the Mic track, so split the audio first.
• ‣Each track can Normalize to a loudness target, so it plays at a steady level. For a spoken interview or podcast, pick −16. Pick −14 for social video and −23 for broadcast. Higher numbers (closer to zero) are louder. The numbers are LUFS, a standard loudness measure.
• ‣Under speech (on a music or voiceover track) lowers that track while someone is talking, so the voice stays clear, then brings it back up. Choose Off or how many dB it drops by.
• ‣The Master strip shows the overall loudness of the finished video. Its True-peak limiter stops loud peaks from distorting, and the Ceiling sets the loudest level it allows.
• ‣Hold Option and drag a clip up or down on the timeline to change its gain.

Blur, pixelate or black out emails, phone numbers, card numbers and keys before you share a recording.

1. Press R, or click Redact.
2. Click Scan for Sensitive Content. OwnClip reads the text on screen, follows text that moves, and proposes regions to cover. Or drag a box over anything yourself.
3. Check Proposed regions. Remove any you do not want with its trash button.
4. Choose a Style for a region: Pixelate, Blur or Blackout. Defaults: emails, phone numbers and web addresses start as Pixelate. Card numbers, Social Security numbers, API keys, tokens and AWS keys start as Blackout, because pixelating small text can leak the shape of its letters. A box you draw yourself starts as Pixelate. Blur is never a default, so pick it yourself if you want it.
5. Click Apply N regions.

Save your edit as a video file, or just its sound, then send it.

On the Free plan: recordings are limited to 3 minutes at 720p, with the OwnClip watermark recorded into the video. Pro and Studio remove those limits for new recordings. Free plan details

1. Click Export in the top right. (Smart Share next to it makes a link instead.)
2. Choose a Format. If you are unsure, use MP4.
3. Choose a Quality: Web for the smallest file, Standard for most uploads, High for the biggest and best. The sheet shows an Estimated size for your trimmed video before you export.
4. Set Resolution and Frame Rate if you need to. Source keeps what you recorded.
5. Click Export, then choose where to save it. The name box is filled in as the recording’s name plus _edited, for example My demo_edited.mp4. OwnClip offers the folder you used last time; the first time, it is the folder macOS suggests.
6. When it finishes, click Finder to show the file.
7. Send it. Attach the exported .mp4 to an email or chat message from Finder (drag it in, or use the attach button). Most email services accept only about 20 to 25 MB per message, so check the size guide below first. If the file is bigger, send a link with Smart Share instead.

• ‣Video formats: MP4 (works almost everywhere), HEVC (smaller, but some older players cannot open it), MOV (QuickTime), WebM (VP9 video with Opus audio, for the web) and GIF (no sound). ProRes 422 and ProRes 4444 are for professional editing. ProRes files are very large.
• ‣Audio only exports just the sound as WAV, ALAC, FLAC or M4A. There is no MP3 option. M4A is the small one; WAV, ALAC and FLAC keep every detail and make much bigger files.
• ‣How big will it be? The MP4 sizes below come from the targets the Export sheet uses, and they include the sound. They are approximate, because the file size depends on your video. Per minute of video: Web is about 11 MB, Standard about 37 MB, and High at least 75 MB. Choosing HEVC makes Web about 7 MB per minute and Standard about 22 MB. MOV files are larger: about 37 MB per minute at Web.
• ‣To fit an email (about 20 to 25 MB). Trim the video first (T), then export MP4 at Web. That fits about 2 minutes. For longer videos, send a Smart Share link (Smart Share needs an OwnClip sign-in and a connected Google Drive), or put the MP4 in any shared folder (iCloud Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive) and send that link. If only your voice matters, export Audio only as M4A: about 2 MB per minute, so roughly 10 minutes fit in an email.
• ‣Polish audio is on by default. It cleans up the voice and balances the loudness for sharing. Turn it off to skip that extra cleanup.
• ‣Resolution only goes down. Picking 1440p for a 1080p recording still gives 1080p.
• ‣OwnClip remembers your last choices, so the next export starts where this one ended.

Keep a copy of each export next to your original, so you can always go back.

1. In the Export sheet, leave Save as version on. It is on by default.
2. To find versions later, select the recording in the Library. The Versions card lists v1, v2 and so on, with the date and size.
3. Click the play button on a row to open that version.

• ‣OwnClip keeps up to 10 versions per recording. When you save an eleventh, the oldest goes to the Trash.
• ‣Turn Save as version off to save only the file you pick. OwnClip remembers the setting.