Video Clip Editor

Knowledge Base

How This Editor Actually Works

Everything here (decoding your clips, generating thumbnails, trimming, and the final export) runs on your own device using a real build of FFmpeg compiled to WebAssembly (the same encoder engine behind most professional video tools). Your clips are never uploaded anywhere. The first time you hit Export, your browser downloads the FFmpeg engine itself (around 30MB, once per session) and then does all the encoding locally.

Timeline Trimming, Zoom, and Reordering

Every clip (and title) sits on one zoomable timeline, shown as a filmstrip of its actual thumbnail. Drag the teal handle on either edge of a clip to move its in-point or out-point directly, no separate sliders. Drag the body of a clip left or right to change its position in the sequence. The timeline automatically zooms to fit your whole sequence in view as soon as clips load. Once you use the zoom control yourself, your zoom level is remembered instead of being reset every time you add a clip. Nothing is destructive until you hit Export, so feel free to experiment first.

Why Cuts Don't Click

Trimming into the middle of a clip's audio can cut it off mid-waveform, which produces an audible click or pop at the edit point. To prevent that, every internal cut between clips gets a short 50-millisecond fade-out on the outgoing clip's audio and fade-in on the incoming clip's, short enough to be inaudible as a "fade" but long enough to remove the click, the same technique audio editors use at edit points. The very start and end of your final export are left untouched.

Adding Titles

The Add a Title panel renders text straight onto a canvas in your browser (pick the text, a font, a text color and background color, and a duration) and drops it onto the timeline as its own clip, trimmable and reorderable exactly like a video clip. At export time it's turned into a real video segment and normalized alongside your footage, so it cuts in cleanly wherever you place it.

Why Export Takes a Moment

Unlike a native desktop editor, FFmpeg.wasm runs inside your browser's sandbox without direct hardware acceleration, so exporting is slower than real-time on longer clips, for short clips (under a minute or two total) it's usually quick. Clips with different resolutions or frame rates are automatically normalized to a common size and frame rate during export so they cut together cleanly.

FAQ

Q: Are my videos uploaded anywhere?
A: No. Every step, from decoding to the final MP4 export, happens locally in your browser using WebAssembly. Nothing about your footage ever leaves your device.

Q: Why did my export fail on mobile?
A: FFmpeg.wasm is memory- and CPU-intensive, and mobile browsers impose stricter memory limits than desktop: try fewer or shorter clips, or use a desktop browser for longer projects.

Q: Can I add background music?
A: Not in this version: titles and text are supported, but adding a separate music track is deliberately left out to keep the tool fast and simple. Let us know via the roadmap page if that's something you need.