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Move, Trim, and Slip Clips

How to rearrange clips on the timeline, trim their edges, slip their contents, and control snapping.

Move a clip​

With the Selection (V) tool, drag a clip's body to move it. The cursor becomes a grab hand over a clip's body. You can move a clip along its track, onto another track, or both in one drag. A clip can never be dragged earlier than the start of the timeline.

To move a clip to another track without changing its timing, hold Shift while dragging. The clip's start time stays locked and only the track changes. You can press or release Shift in the middle of a drag and the preview updates right away.

To move several clips at once, select them first, then drag any one of them. The whole group moves together, and the move is one undo step.

Press Escape during a drag to cancel it. Nothing is changed and nothing lands in your undo history.

Know what happens when you drop onto another clip​

Dropping a clip onto occupied space overwrites what's underneath. The clips below the dropped clip are trimmed to make room, or removed entirely if the dropped clip covers them. This is not an insert, and the drop is not blocked. If you overwrite something by accident, press Ctrl+Z.

If the timeline can't accept a drop at all, the clip simply returns to where it started.

Create a track by dragging past the edge​

Drag a clip above the top video track, or below the bottom audio track, to create a new track. A ghost row and a blue boundary line preview the new track before you release. Dragging two rows past the edge creates two tracks. New tracks are named automatically, such as Video 2 or Audio 3.

Trim a clip's edges​

To change where a clip starts or ends:

  1. Move the pointer to the clip's left or right edge. The cursor becomes a horizontal resize arrow.
  2. Drag the edge to the new position.

Trimming stops playback if the timeline is playing. Press Escape mid-trim to cancel.

With Linked Selection on, trimming one half of a linked pair trims the other half by the same amount. Turn the toggle off to trim just one clip.

tip

On an audio track with the transcript row showing, you can drag the edge of a word or sentence pill. This trims the clip to exactly that word boundary.

Slip a clip​

Slipping changes which part of the source footage a clip shows, without changing the clip's position or length on the timeline. Use it when a clip is the right length in the right place but shows the wrong moment.

Either select the Slip (Y) tool and drag a clip's body, or hold Alt and drag with the Selection tool. The slip stops at the real start and end of the source media, so you can never slip past the footage you have.

With Linked Selection on, linked partners slip by the same amount.

Snap clips into place​

With snapping on, clips pull toward useful positions while you drag, and a yellow snap line shows the position you'll land on. Clips snap to:

  • The start and end edges of other clips.
  • The playhead.
  • Markers.
  • Word boundaries inside the clip, when you trim from a transcript pill edge.

Toggle snapping with the magnet button in the tools strip or by pressing S. The snap distance is a fixed screen distance, so it feels the same at any zoom level.