Editing the video by deleting words

This is the fastest edit in the app, and the one worth learning first.

On the Captions tab, under TRANSCRIPT, every word is clickable. Click one to jump the playhead to it. Drag across several, or hold Shift and click, to choose a run of words.

Then delete them. The video is cut at exactly those words, on every track, and closes up.

Why it works

The recogniser gave every word its own start and end, measured against the audio. So a word is not just text in a list, it is a piece of the timeline, and removing it is a real cut in a known place.

What happens around the cut

The cut falls between two words, in the gap, rather than clipping the end of the word before it. So the sentence either side still sounds like a sentence.

The caption line closes up with it. Anything downstream, including a transition on a nearby join, is carried.

What it is for

Taking out a false start. You said the first half of a sentence twice. Select the first attempt, delete, done.

Cutting a whole digression. Select from the first word to the last and remove thirty seconds in one action, without hunting for the exact frames on the timeline.

Removing a filler word here and there, by hand.

What cannot be cut

Words on a locked track. They are shown as such and left alone.

Lines you typed by hand. They are dimmed. They carry no word times, so there is nothing to cut against, and guessing would cut the video in the wrong place.

Check what you selected first

Chosen shows how many words are selected before you do anything. Read it. A stray Shift and click can select far more than you meant, and undo exists but noticing is cheaper.