Trimming and arranging clips on the timeline

Every project in Edits opens onto the same basic layout: a preview window up top, a multi-track timeline underneath. Video, audio, text, and overlays each get their own row, called a track, stacked on top of each other in the order they'll layer visually. Understanding that stacking, and the handful of tools that operate on it, is most of what you need before touching anything else. None of it is complicated once you've done it a few times, but the terminology can be confusing on a first open.

Split first, decide later

Tap a clip and drag the playhead to the exact frame you want to cut at, then use Split. This doesn't delete anything, it just breaks one clip into two pieces you can now handle separately, trim, delete, replace, or move independently. Splitting liberally, even in spots you're not fully sure about yet, is cheaper than trying to trim a single long clip perfectly in one pass. You can always rejoin the intent of a cut later by simply not deleting the second piece.

Trimming versus deleting

These two get mixed up constantly by anyone new to timeline editing, so it's worth being precise about the difference:

• Trim drags the edge of a clip inward, shortening what plays without removing the clip from the timeline or affecting anything around it.
• Delete removes the whole selected clip, and everything after it on that track shifts left automatically to close the gap.
• Split then delete is the move for cutting a section out of the middle of a longer clip: split at both edges of the unwanted section, select the middle piece, then delete just that.

If you just want to shave a second off the start of a clip, trim it. If you want a chunk gone entirely, split it out first.

Working across tracks without losing sync

Once you add a second track, a caption, a music bed, an overlay, moving a video clip earlier or later can knock everything else out of sync with it. Item-to-item alignment, the snapping behavior Edits does automatically, helps here: dragging a clip near another element's edge snaps it into place instead of leaving an awkward gap or overlap. Zoom in on the timeline whenever you're lining things up precisely. It's easy to think two clips are aligned at the default zoom level when they're actually off by a few frames, and that small offset is exactly the kind of thing that reads as sloppy once the video is playing back at full speed.

Speed changes affect length

Slowing a clip down makes it occupy more time on the timeline. Speeding one up shortens it. If you've already lined up captions or music to a clip and then change its speed, expect to have to nudge that alignment afterward, since everything downstream on that track just got pushed or pulled. Doing speed adjustments before fine-tuning anything that depends on exact timing saves a full round of rework later.

A rough-cut-first habit worth keeping

Do a rough pass first: get every clip roughly where it belongs, roughly the right length, before you touch anything else. Only then go back and trim precisely, add captions, and layer in effects like keyframes or transitions. Trying to perfect each clip before moving to the next one usually means redoing earlier work anyway, once you see how the full sequence actually flows against the clips around it.