Once you've selected a moment on your timeline, there are two steps to get it ready for social media: crop the frame to match your target platform's aspect ratio, then export the selection into a downloadable clip. This page covers both.
Cropping
Aspect Ratios
Clips supports four aspect ratios:
Ratio | Use Case |
16:9 | YouTube, standard landscape video (default) |
9:16 | TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts |
1:1 | Instagram feed, Facebook posts |
4:3 | Standard definition, some social platforms |
Enabling Crop Mode
- In the project editor, activate Crop Mode from the toolbar
- A crop overlay appears on the video preview
- Select your desired aspect ratio
The overlay shows your selected frame area with a white border and rule-of-thirds grid. Everything outside the crop is dimmed.
Adjusting the Crop Area
Move - Drag the center of the selection to reposition it within the video frame.
Resize - Drag any of the 8 handles (4 corners + 4 sides) to resize the crop area. The selected aspect ratio is locked automatically during resize, so your crop always matches the target format.
Reset - Clear your crop selection to start over with the default full-frame view.
How Crop Settings Are Saved
Crop settings are stored as part of your project. Position and size are saved in pixels relative to the original video resolution, so your crop is preserved exactly as you configured it — even if you close and reopen the project later.
When you export, the crop is applied during rendering to produce a video in your chosen aspect ratio and frame area.
Tip: For vertical content (9:16), position your crop over the presenter or the most visually engaging part of your studio. Since your recordings are typically landscape (16:9), choosing the right crop position makes a significant difference in how your final clip looks on TikTok or Reels.
Exporting
With your crop configured, you're ready to export your selection into a downloadable clip.
Creating an Export
- Make sure you have a selection defined on the timeline (in and out points)
- Optionally, configure your crop settings for the target aspect ratio
- Click Export
- Enter a file name for your clip
- Confirm to start the export
Export Processing
Once created, your export moves through the following stages:
Status | What's Happening |
Pending | Export is queued for processing |
Downloading | The selected segment is being fetched from your local storage |
Processing | Video is being encoded with crop settings applied |
Uploading | Processed file is being prepared for download |
Completed | Your clip is ready to download |
Failed | Something went wrong — check the failure reason for details |
A progress bar shows real-time completion percentage. Status updates are pushed to your browser automatically - no need to refresh the page.
Downloading Your Clip
When an export reaches Completed status, a download button appears. Click it to save the finished clip to your computer.
You can find your exports in two places:
- Project Editor → Exports tab - shows exports for the current project
- Clips → Exports - shows all exports across all your projects
Each export card displays the file name, processing status, creation date, and the user who created it.
What's Next
Direct publishing to social media platforms and automatic export to external storage locations (NAS, Google Drive) are on the roadmap.