Timeline editing
The timeline is a real multitrack editor: video, audio, and text tracks, frame-accurate trims, waveforms, and filmstrips. If you've cut in a desktop NLE, your instincts transfer; if you haven't, there are about six moves to learn.
The core moves
- Trim — drag either edge of a clip. For speed, park the playhead where you want the cut and press Q (trim start to playhead) or W (trim end to playhead).
- Split — ⌘K splits the selected clip at the playhead.
- Delete vs. ripple delete — ⌫ removes a clip and leaves a gap; ⇧⌫ removes it and pulls everything after it left to close the gap.
- Move — drag clips along a track or onto another one. Clips snap to edges, the playhead, and each other.
- Select forward — A selects everything after the playhead on the current track; ⇧A does it across all tracks. Perfect for opening up space in the middle of a cut.
- Undo — ⌘Z, as deep as you need.
Tracks
Drag a clip above or below the existing tracks and a new track appears. Higher video tracks render on top — that's how picture-in-picture, overlays, and caption tracks stack. Audio tracks mix together; each clip has its own volume.
Clip properties
With a clip selected, the Inspector (⌥⌘0) exposes:
- Timing & speed — retime a clip without touching its neighbors.
- Volume and opacity.
- Transform — position, scale, rotation; crop into a shot or build a side-by-side manually.
- Keyframes — animate any of the above over time.
- Blend mode — for overlays and textures.
Color, LUTs, and effects live one tab over — see Color & effects.
:::tip Let the agent do the tedious pass "Remove the silences, then tighten every cut by 5 frames" is one sentence to the AI editing agent, and it uses these exact same operations — so you can inspect and undo anything it does. :::