How to clip a YouTube video: 4 free ways, from a link to a vertical Short

Which method should you use?

You want	Method	Gives you	Works on
To send a friend one moment	1. Clip button or Share at timestamp	A link	Any public video
To shorten or reuse your own upload	2. YouTube Studio	An edited video or a republished clip on YouTube	Your own channel
An exact segment as a file	3. Free trimmer or ffmpeg	An MP4 on your device	Videos you own or are licensed to use
Several Shorts from a long video	4. AI clipping (OpenShorts)	Vertical 9:16 clips with captions	Videos you own or are licensed to use

Before any of them, find the exact moment. Scrub the timeline, or open the transcript (the "Show transcript" button in the description) and search for a phrase you remember: every line has a timestamp. Write down the start and end time, to the second.

Method 1: share a moment with the Clip button or a timestamp

For years YouTube had a Clip button (the scissors icon under the player) that let a viewer select a short stretch of a video, give it a title and share it as a link. In April 2026 YouTube announced it was discontinuing viewer Clips and making Share at timestamp the main way to share a moment, now in the mobile apps as well as on desktop. Rollouts are gradual, so what you see depends on your account and region.

If you still see the Clip button under a video:

1. Click or tap Clip.
2. Drag the selection to the stretch you want and add a title.
3. Click Share clip and copy the link.

If you do not, use a timestamp link, which does the same job for most people:

1. Pause the video at the moment you want.
2. Click Share, tick Start at (it fills in the current time) and copy the link. On a phone, use the same option in the Share sheet where it is available.
3. Or add it by hand: append &t=95 (seconds) to a youtube.com/watch link, or ?t=95 to a youtu.be link.

Both give you a link, not a file. The viewer watches the original video on YouTube, the creator keeps the view, and if the video is removed or made private the link stops working. That makes it the right method for sharing and the wrong one for making your own content.

Method 2: YouTube Studio, for videos on your own channel

If the video is yours, YouTube Studio has three tools that cover most needs.

Trim your upload in the Studio editor

1. Open YouTube Studio, go to Content and click the video.
2. Choose Editor in the left menu, then Trim & cut.
3. Drag the edges to keep the part you want, or add cuts to remove stretches in the middle, then Save.

This edits the published video itself; it does not create a second one. The change takes a while to process, the URL and views stay the same, and some videos cannot be edited (Studio tells you when). Keep a copy of the original first if you might want it back.

Republish part of a video with Video Clips

YouTube Studio also has a Video Clips tool for creators, which YouTube describes as letting you republish clips from your longer videos and archived live streams. YouTube has said it will extend it to Shorts. Where it is available on your channel, it is the most direct way to turn one segment of your own video into its own upload without downloading anything.

Download your own video to edit elsewhere

In Content, open the three-dot menu on a video and choose Download. You get an MP4 of your own upload, which you can then cut with method 3 or clip with method 4. This is the clean, permitted way to get a file of a YouTube video: it is your video, and Studio hands it to you.

Method 3: cut the segment yourself, free

Once you have a file you have the rights to (your own Studio download, your original recording, or a video under a licence such as Creative Commons Attribution), cutting a segment out takes seconds.

With a free trimmer

• Mac: open the file in QuickTime Player, choose Edit, Trim, drag the yellow handles and save.
• Windows: open it in the Photos app or Clipchamp, which ship with Windows 11, and use Trim.
• iPhone: in Photos, tap Edit and drag the ends of the timeline; save as a new clip to keep the original.
• Android: in Google Photos, tap Edit and drag the trim handles, then Save copy.

With ffmpeg, to the exact second

ffmpeg is free, runs on every operating system and is the tool most video software uses underneath. This keeps the part from 1:30 to 2:15 without re-encoding, so it is instant and lossless:

ffmpeg -ss 00:01:30 -to 00:02:15 -i input.mp4 -c copy clip.mp4

With -c copy the cut snaps to the nearest keyframe, so it can start a fraction of a second early. For a frame-exact cut, re-encode instead:

ffmpeg -ss 00:01:30 -to 00:02:15 -i input.mp4 -c:v libx264 -crf 18 -preset veryfast -c:a aac -b:a 160k clip.mp4

And to turn a 16:9 segment into a centred 9:16 vertical clip for Shorts, TikTok or Reels:

ffmpeg -ss 00:01:30 -to 00:02:15 -i input.mp4 -vf "crop=ih*9/16:ih,scale=1080:1920" -c:v libx264 -crf 18 -c:a aac clip_vertical.mp4

A fixed centre crop works when the speaker stays in the middle. When they move, or there are two people on screen, a static crop cuts someone off, and that is the point where doing it by hand stops scaling. If you only need the format change, the free 16:9 to 9:16 converter does it in your browser.

For a Creative Commons video or your own upload, yt-dlp can download just the part you need instead of the whole file: yt-dlp --download-sections "*00:01:30-00:02:15" <video-url>. Use it only where you have the rights; YouTube's Terms of Service restrict downloading other people's videos.

Method 4: let AI find the best moments and cut them into Shorts

Methods 1 to 3 assume you already know which 30 seconds you want. With a 45-minute podcast or a two-hour stream, finding them is the real work. An AI clipper does that part: it reads the whole video and returns the strongest moments already cut, reframed and captioned.

With OpenShorts:

1. Paste the YouTube link (or upload the file) at openshorts.app, or in your own self-hosted copy.
2. The video is transcribed with a timestamp for every word and scanned for scene cuts.
3. Google Gemini scores the transcript and picks the 3 to 15 strongest moments, each 15 to 60 seconds, that make sense on their own.
4. Each moment is cut and reframed to 9:16: face tracking for one speaker, both people stacked for a two-person podcast, the screen above the presenter for a tutorial.
5. Subtitles are burned in from the word-level transcript, with a hook line on the first seconds. Download the clips, or post them to YouTube Shorts, TikTok and Instagram Reels.

The same rights rule applies: use it on your own videos, on channels you manage, or on footage you are licensed to clip. The details for YouTube sources are on the YouTube clip maker page, and for turning a channel's long videos into Shorts, see the YouTube Shorts maker and the YouTube to Shorts converter.

What it costs: OpenShorts self-hosted is free and open source under MIT, with no watermark and no cap. OpenShorts Cloud clips your first video free up to 60 minutes, then 20 minutes a month with a watermark, and paid plans start at $12/month without one (all plans).

Copyright: what you are allowed to clip

The method is the easy part. Whether you may use the clip is the one that gets channels struck.

• Sharing a link or timestamp to any public video is fine: it plays the original, on YouTube, credited to the creator.
• Your own videos are yours to cut, download from Studio and repost anywhere.
• Licensed videos, such as those marked Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) in YouTube's description panel, can be reused if you credit the creator as the licence requires.
• Someone else's video needs their permission to download, re-upload or monetise. Many creators run clipping programmes and say so in their description; ask if not.
• Fair use (commentary, criticism, news) is a legal defence judged case by case, not a licence. Do not build a channel on the assumption that it covers you.

Re-uploading other people's clips without permission also tends to trip YouTube's reused-content rules for monetisation, independent of copyright.

Clipping on mobile vs desktop

On a phone, sharing is the strong suit: Share at timestamp from the Share sheet, and the YouTube and YouTube Studio apps for reusing parts of your own uploads in Shorts. For a file you already have, the trim tools in Photos and Google Photos are the quickest way to cut it.

On a desktop, you get the full Studio editor, frame-exact cuts with ffmpeg and a mouse for precise trimming. Long videos are also easier to scrub on a big timeline. An AI clipper works the same on both, since the processing happens on the server (or on your own machine when self-hosted).

Common mistakes when clipping YouTube videos

• Cutting mid-sentence. Start a beat before the first word and end after the last one. A transcript with word timestamps makes this exact.
• Keeping 16:9 for Shorts. A horizontal clip in a vertical feed is a small box between black bars. Reframe to 9:16.
• No captions. Most short-form video is watched on mute. Burn subtitles in.
• Clips that need context. A moment that only makes sense after the previous ten minutes will not hold a stranger. Pick moments that stand alone.

Common questions

How do you clip a YouTube video?

Note the start and end time of the part you want, then use one of four routes: YouTube Studio's editor or Video Clips tool for your own uploads, a free trimmer or ffmpeg on a copy of a video you have the rights to, or an AI clipper such as OpenShorts that finds the best moments and cuts them into vertical Shorts. YouTube's viewer Clip button, where it still appears, only makes a shareable link.

How do I cut a clip from a YouTube video?

Get a copy of the video you own or are licensed to use (YouTube Studio lets you download your own uploads), then cut it: ffmpeg -ss 00:01:30 -to 00:02:15 -i input.mp4 -c copy clip.mp4 keeps the part between 1:30 and 2:15 without re-encoding. Any free trimmer such as QuickTime, the Windows Photos app or your phone's gallery does the same with a slider.

How do I copy a video clip from YouTube?

To share a moment, use Share and tick "Start at" to copy a link that opens the video at that second. To get an actual file, you need a video you own or have permission to use: download your own upload from YouTube Studio, or use the creator's licence (for example Creative Commons), then trim it.

How do I take a clip from a YouTube video for TikTok or Shorts?

Cut the segment, then reframe it from 16:9 to 9:16 and add captions. You can do it by hand with an editor or ffmpeg, or paste the link into an AI clipper like OpenShorts, which picks 3 to 15 moments of 15 to 60 seconds, reframes them with face tracking and burns in word-level subtitles.

How do I save a clip of a YouTube video?

A YouTube Clip or a timestamp link is not a file; it plays the original video on YouTube and disappears if the video is removed. To keep a clip, save a trimmed copy of a video you have the rights to on your own device, with Studio's download plus a trimmer, or with ffmpeg.

Is YouTube Clips gone?

In April 2026 YouTube announced it was discontinuing the viewer Clips feature and making Share at timestamp, now on mobile too, the main way to share a moment. Creators keep the Video Clips tool in YouTube Studio for republishing parts of their own longer videos and archived streams. Availability can differ by account and region.

Can I clip someone else's YouTube video?

Sharing a link or timestamp is fine. Downloading, re-uploading or monetising a cut of someone else's video needs their permission or a licence that allows it, such as Creative Commons Attribution; YouTube's Terms of Service restrict downloading, and fair use is a narrow defence decided case by case, not a rule you can count on.

Can I clip a YouTube video on my phone?

Yes. Share at timestamp works in the mobile apps. For your own videos, the YouTube Studio app and the YouTube app's Shorts tools let you reuse parts of your uploads. For a file you have the rights to, the trim tool in the iPhone Photos app or Google Photos cuts it in seconds.

Sources

• YouTube discontinuing viewer Clips in favour of Share at timestamp, and the Studio Video Clips tool: 9to5Google, 17 April 2026; Tubefilter, 17 April 2026.
• ffmpeg options -ss, -to and -c copy: ffmpeg documentation.
• OpenShorts pipeline: how OpenShorts works and the source on GitHub.

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