Timeline and tracks

The timeline is where you assemble a video: tracks stacked on top of each other, clips placed in time, and a playhead that scrubs through the result.

Quick overview

1. Add a track for each layer you need: video, audio, or subtitle.
2. Drag media onto a track, or pull it in from the media browser (Alt + 8).
3. Trim, split, and snap clips into place.
4. Pick an edit mode, normal, ripple, or insert, to control how later clips react to your changes.
5. Drop markers on moments you want to find again.
6. Zoom in for frame-accurate edits, zoom out to see the whole video.
7. Retime a clip from the Speed panel, or track a face to auto-frame it.

Detailed reference

Tracks

Track type	Holds	Behavior
Video	Video clips, images	Composited together in the preview
Audio	Music, voiceover, sound effects	Mixed together on the audio mixer
Subtitle	Caption cues	Rendered into the frame whenever the track is not muted

Text, images, shapes, and other objects you place directly on the preview canvas become their own overlay clips on the timeline automatically, each labeled with an icon for its type (text, image, sticker, and so on), so you can trim and time them like any other clip without adding a track by hand.

Add a track from the track list header. Right-click a track to rename, duplicate, or delete it. The toolbar's Bring Forward and Send Backward buttons do the same job as Alt + ↑ / Alt + ↓, moving the selected clip to the track above or below.

Importing media

Drag video, audio, or image files onto the timeline, or open the media browser (Alt + 8) to pull in something you already imported. Playback support follows your browser: common formats like MP4 and WebM for video, MP3 and WAV for audio, and PNG, JPG, and WebP for images all work.

Clip operations

Operation	How
Trim	Drag a clip's left or right edge
Split	Position the playhead and press S, or click a cut point with the razor tool (C)
Snap	Clips snap to other clip edges, the playhead, and markers
Duplicate	Ctrl + D
Move between tracks	Drag a clip vertically onto another track
Delete	Select a clip and press Delete

Edit modes

Mode	Effect
Normal	Trims and deletes can leave a gap
Ripple	Deleting or trimming shifts later clips left to close the gap
Insert	Pasting or importing a clip pushes later clips out of the way

Cycle between modes with the edit-mode button in the toolbar.

Zoom and navigate

Zoom with + / -, or hold Ctrl and scroll over the timeline. Click the ruler to move the playhead, or use Home / End to jump to the start or end. J, K, and L shuttle playback backward, stop, and forward, tapping J or L again increases speed, the same convention most video editors use for scrubbing.

Markers

Type	Use
Point	Flag a single moment
Range	Mark a span of time
Chapter	Label a section; also used by scene detection
To-do	Leave yourself a note to revisit

Add a marker with M, and jump between them with Shift + M / Alt + M. Give a marker a color and a note to make it easier to find later.

Keyframes and speed

Open a clip's Speed section in the inspector to set a flat playback rate, or apply a named ramp:

Ramp preset	Effect
Smooth Slow-Mo	Eases down to quarter speed through the middle of the clip, then back up
Speed Up	Accelerates from normal speed up to 4x
Slow Down	Starts at 4x and eases down to normal speed
Ramp In/Out	Ramps up to 3x through the middle, normal at both ends
Freeze Frame	Holds near-still through the middle of the clip

Ramps are stored as keyframes on the clip, and a diamond marker appears on the clip in the timeline whenever it has any. The same keyframe system also drives face tracking: right-click a clip and choose Face Track, then use Auto-Zoom to Face in the inspector to generate position and scale keyframes that keep a tracked face framed.

For finer control than the named ramps, open Speed Curve from the Tools menu: it is a separate bezier curve editor for time remapping, with its own preset set (Linear, Ease In, Ease Out, Ease In-Out, Speed Ramp Up, Speed Ramp Down, Freeze Mid, Pulse) that you can also drag by hand into a custom curve. The Keyframe Graph tool in the same menu opens a general-purpose editor for the other animatable properties, position, scale, rotation, opacity, and volume, if you need to hand-key something beyond speed.

Multicam

Two related tools cover a multi-camera edit, both from the toolbar's Tools menu:

• Multi-Cam (Ctrl + Shift + M): add video clips already on your timeline as camera angles, then click Switch on a camera while scrubbing to record an angle change at the current playhead. Finalize Cuts bakes the switches into your edit and drops a marker at each cut point; Auto-Sync lines up the cameras by matching their audio.
• Multi-Cam Monitor: a 2x2 or 3x3 grid so you can watch several camera angles side by side while you decide where to cut.

Scene detection

Analyze a clip for hard cuts using a frame-by-frame histogram comparison, and automatically drop a chapter marker at each detected cut, useful for finding scene boundaries quickly in a long recording. Run it from the Tools menu or Ctrl + Shift + J; it works on the selected video clip, or the first video clip in the project if nothing is selected.

Step by step

1. Rough-cut a clip and clean up the gaps

1. Drag your footage onto a video track, or import it with Ctrl + I.
2. Position the playhead where you want a cut and press S to split, or toggle the razor tool with C and click directly on the clip.
3. Switch to ripple mode with the edit-mode button in the toolbar (it cycles Normal, Ripple, Insert), then select and press Delete on the parts you don't want; ripple mode closes the gap automatically instead of leaving a hole.
4. Step frame by frame with , and . to fine-tune a cut point, or Shift + , / Shift + . to move faster.

2. Set up a two-track edit with background music

1. Add a video track and an audio track from the track list header.
2. Place your main footage on the video track, and drag a music file onto the audio track.
3. Drag the music clip's edges to trim it to length, and use snapping (toggle with N) to line its start up with the video.
4. Move to Audio, recording, and subtitles to balance the mix once both tracks are in place.

3. Retime part of a clip and freeze a moment

1. Select the clip and open its Speed section in the inspector, or right-click it for the quick 0.5x / 1x / 1.5x / 2x speed buttons.
2. Apply a named ramp (Smooth Slow-Mo, Speed Up, Slow Down, Ramp In/Out) for a quick effect, or open Speed Curve from the Tools menu for a hand-drawn curve.
3. To hold on a single moment, position the playhead where you want the freeze; the clip gets split there and a still frame is inserted for the duration you choose.

4. Split a clip's audio onto its own track

1. Right-click a video clip and choose Detach Audio.
2. The audio moves to a new clip on the first audio track (one is created if you don't have one yet), the original clip's built-in audio is muted, and a waveform is generated for the new clip.
3. Edit the detached audio independently, retime it, apply a voice preset, or delete it if you only wanted to silence the original.

Common tasks

Task	Steps
Move a clip to a different track	Drag it vertically onto the target track, or select it and press Alt + ↑ / Alt + ↓
Set a clip as the video background	Right-click a video or image clip and choose Set as Background; choose Remove from Background on the same menu to undo it
Cut through every track at once	Position the playhead and press Ctrl + Shift + X for a through cut, instead of splitting each track one at a time
Jump straight to a clip edge	Use the toolbar's previous/next-frame buttons; they jump to the nearest clip start or end across all tracks rather than moving one frame
Rotate or flip a clip	Right-click it and choose Flip Horizontal, Flip Vertical, or Rotate 90°
Find a marker again	Shift + M / Alt + M cycle to the previous / next marker from wherever the playhead is
Nudge a clip's speed without opening a panel	Right-click it and pick 0.5x, 1x, 1.5x, or 2x directly from the context menu
Rename or remove a track	Right-click the track in the track headers column for Rename, Duplicate, and Delete

Troubleshooting

• A single frame step doesn't look exactly right. , / . and the 10-frame variants nudge the playhead by a fixed 1/30 second regardless of your project's actual frame rate, so on a 24fps or 60fps project it approximates a frame rather than matching one exactly.
• The razor tool stays on. C toggles razor mode on and off rather than applying once; press V or C again to get back to the normal selection tool.
• A trim or delete leaves a gap you didn't expect. Check the edit-mode button in the toolbar: gaps are expected behavior in Normal mode. Switch to Ripple mode if you want later clips to shift and close the gap automatically, or Insert mode if you want new clips to push existing ones out of the way.
• Multi-Cam Monitor or Multi-Cam has nothing to show. Both tools work from video clips already sitting on your timeline; add your footage to a track first, then add it as a camera angle from the panel.

Keyboard shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Space	Play / pause
J / K / L	Shuttle backward / stop / forward
S	Split at the playhead
C	Toggle the razor tool
V	Back to the selection tool
Ctrl + Shift + X	Through cut (split every track at the playhead)
N	Toggle snapping
Delete	Delete the selected clip
Ctrl + D	Duplicate the selected clip
Ctrl + C / Ctrl + V	Copy / paste
Ctrl + Z / Ctrl + Y	Undo / redo
, / .	Step one frame back / forward
Shift + , / Shift + .	Step 10 frames back / forward
Home / End	Jump to start / end
M	Add a marker
Shift + M / Alt + M	Previous / next marker
Alt + ↑ / Alt + ↓	Move the selected clip to the track above / below
+ / -	Zoom timeline in / out
Ctrl + I	Add media
Alt + 8	Toggle the media browser
Ctrl + Shift + J	Run scene detection
Ctrl + Shift + M	Open the Multi-Cam panel
Ctrl + Shift + B	Run motion analysis on the selected clip (Stabilize)

Tips

Ripple while you rough-cut

Switch to ripple mode for a first pass: every delete or trim closes the gap automatically, so you are not left with dead air to clean up later.

Zoom to the edit, not the timeline

Zoom in tight for frame-accurate trims and splits, then zoom back out to check pacing across the whole video.

Related

• Video editor overview for the full workspace
• Effects, transitions, and color for styling a clip once it is placed
• Audio, recording, and subtitles for the audio and subtitle tracks on this same timeline
• Video export for rendering the result
• Selecting objects for working with canvas overlay content