YouTube Shorts maker: AI Shorts from your long videos
First video free up to 60 min, then 20 min a month, watermarked, no card. No watermark from $12/month, or self-host free under MIT.
No link? Upload the file in the app instead. Sources need at least 45 seconds of material.
A one-hour podcast episode is, as far as YouTube Shorts are concerned, a quarry. OpenShorts reads the whole of it, ranks every stretch for how well it would play to someone who has never heard of you, and cuts the best 6 to 12 into vertical Shorts with captions, a hook over the opening seconds and a title written for the Shorts feed.
Then it can post them to your channel for you, one a day if you like, so the long video you already made keeps feeding the Shorts shelf for a week or more.
Free plan: your first video clipped whole up to 60 minutes, then 20 minutes a month, with a watermark and no credit card. Paid plans start at $12/month with no watermark, and the self-hosted edition is free under MIT.
How to make YouTube Shorts from a long video
1. Bring the long video
Paste a link to the long video (YouTube, or any of the other sites listed below) or upload the file. A podcast episode, a talk, a tutorial or a livestream replay all work; the source needs at least 45 seconds of material.
2. Let the AI pick and cut the Shorts
The video is transcribed word by word, Gemini scores every stretch of it for how well it would stand alone, and the best ones are cut on sentence boundaries, 15 to 60 seconds by default or up to 3 minutes if you raise the maximum.
3. Post them as Shorts
Each Short is reframed to 9:16, captioned, given a hook over the first seconds and a title. Publish it to your YouTube channel from the dashboard, schedule a week of them, or download the files.
What YouTube needs from a Short, and how each part is handled
A Short is not just a short video. YouTube treats an upload as a Short when it is vertical or square and runs up to 3 minutes (its help pages, checked 28 October 2026), and it is watched in a feed where the viewer decides in the first second or two whether to keep watching. Each part of a Short that OpenShorts makes answers one of those constraints:
- Aspect ratio. The horizontal source is reframed to 9:16 rather than letterboxed, so the Short fills the phone. A single speaker is face-tracked; two people talking are stacked; a screen recording keeps the screen readable. A source that is already vertical is passed through untouched.
- Length. 15 to 60 seconds by default, because most moments that stand alone are that long. Raise the maximum to as much as 180 seconds in the advanced options when you clip a story that needs room.
- The first seconds. A hook line, written from what is said in that clip, is drawn over the opening. Its height is chosen per clip: six frames are checked for faces and the text goes where it covers the least of anyone's face, inside the area the Shorts player does not cover.
- Sound off. Captions are burned in from the word-level transcript, placed about 15% above the bottom edge so the title, channel name and buttons of the Shorts player do not sit on top of them.
- The title. Each clip gets its own title and description, written for a Short rather than copied from the long video.
Picking the moments: why the whole video is read
The cheap way to make Shorts is to cut the first minute, or a random one. The useful way is to find the passages that make sense with no context, and that takes reading all of it. OpenShorts transcribes the video with a timestamp on every word, splits the transcript into windows of about 90 seconds and has Gemini score every window on hook strength, emotional payload and how well it stands alone. The score is global, so the best ten windows of a long episode win wherever they sit, then a second pass cuts each clip so it starts on a sentence and ends on the payoff.
When a video has almost no speech (gameplay, music, a silent demo), the transcript is useless, so the video itself is sent to Gemini to watch instead, and the Shorts come back the same way, just without captions.
Real OpenShorts output, not a mock-up. A 39-minute interview cut into a Short: the moment was picked from the transcript, the crop follows the speaker and the captions are timed word by word. Source: Startup Founder & CEO Mark Bush on How to Overcome Adversity, Foundation for Economic Education, CC BY.
Posting to YouTube from the same place
Connect your YouTube channel once in the dashboard. From then on each Short has a publish button that sends it to the channel with its title and description, and schedule a week spreads a batch across the coming days at the time you choose, which is how most channels use a long video: one Short a day pointing back at it. TikTok and Instagram sit on the same screen if you post there too. Posting works on the free plan as well, with a daily cap.
One thing YouTube lets you do that is worth doing by hand: in YouTube Studio a Short can link to a related video, which puts a link to the full episode under the Short. OpenShorts does not set that field for you.
Shorts on autopilot
If you publish long videos regularly, Autopilot does the whole loop without you. On a paid plan it watches your connected channel, clips every new upload on its own (the first 10 to 90 minutes of each, your choice, 30 by default) and, if you turn publishing on, schedules the best of them, up to five per video, one a day at your hour and in your time zone. It only clips videos published after you switched it on, so the back catalogue is never billed by surprise, and it skips uploads that are already Shorts.
Not the same page as the YouTube to Shorts converter
The YouTube to Shorts converter covers the one-off job: you have a YouTube link and want it turned into vertical clips without downloading anything. This page is about running a Shorts shelf: deciding the length, the hook, the captions and the titles, and posting on a schedule. Same pipeline underneath; use whichever question you came with. And if all you want is a single moment trimmed by hand, how to clip a YouTube video compares the free manual routes with the AI one.
Works with links from other sites too
The long video does not have to be on YouTube. The box above takes public video links from YouTube, Vimeo, TikTok, X (Twitter), Twitch, Kick, Facebook, Instagram, Dailymotion, Reddit and Streamable, so a webinar on Vimeo, a Facebook Live replay, a video post on X or Reddit, or a Dailymotion or Streamable upload can all become YouTube Shorts. Private and sign-in-only videos cannot be fetched; for those, and for files on your disk, upload the file in the app.
Free tier compared
Competitor plans checked 5 October 2026 on their public pricing pages.
| Tool | Free plan | Paid from |
|---|---|---|
| OpenShorts Cloud | First video up to 60 min, then 20 min/month. Watermark, no credit card | $12/month, 100 min, no watermark |
| OpenShorts self-hosted | Free under MIT. No watermark, no cap; your hardware and API keys | $0 |
| Opus Clip | 60 min/mo. Watermarked, export within 3 days | $15/month |
| 2short.ai | 30 min/mo. No watermark, YouTube links only | $9.90/month |
| Submagic | None. A trial with no credit card | $12/month billed yearly |
| SendShort | None. 3 free videos at sign-up | $19/month ($15 billed yearly) |
Two things the free allowances hide. Submagic and SendShort have no ongoing free plan, and SendShort only clips long videos from its $29/month tier up. 2short.ai has the one free plan here with no watermark, and takes YouTube links only on it. OpenShorts' free plan is watermarked and takes links and uploads.
What it does not do
- It does not invent footage. A Short is cut from your video. For videos made from nothing, see the AI Shorts tab and its AI actors.
- It does not pick music or trending sounds. The audio is the source's own.
- It does not set the related-video link in YouTube Studio, or your thumbnail frame for Shorts.
- Autopilot is a paid feature and works from a connected YouTube channel, not from other sites.
- It does not promise views. It finds the moments most likely to stand alone; the feed decides the rest.
- The free plan is watermarked. Upgrading removes the mark from existing Shorts too.
Whose videos can become Shorts
Yours, and videos you have the rights to. Shorts cut from someone else's upload without permission get claimed or removed like any reupload. Every job asks you to confirm the rights before it runs.
Common questions
- Is this YouTube Shorts maker free?
- Yes on two terms. OpenShorts Cloud clips your first video whole up to 60 minutes, then 20 minutes a month, with a watermark and no credit card; paid plans start at $12/month with no watermark. The self-hosted edition is free under MIT with no watermark and no cap.
- Will my Shorts have a watermark?
- On the hosted free plan, yes. A paid plan removes it from new Shorts and from the ones you already made. The self-hosted edition never adds one.
- How long can a YouTube Short be?
- Up to 3 minutes, in a vertical or square aspect ratio, according to YouTube's help pages (checked 28 October 2026). OpenShorts cuts 15 to 60 seconds by default; set the maximum up to 180 seconds in the advanced options when a longer Short suits the moment.
- Can it post straight to my YouTube channel?
- Yes. Connect the channel once in the dashboard and publish a Short with its title and description, or schedule a week of them. TikTok and Instagram can be posted to from the same screen.
- Can it make Shorts from every new upload automatically?
- Yes, with Autopilot on a paid plan. Every new video on your connected channel is clipped on its own, and if you turn on publishing the best Shorts are scheduled one a day at the hour you choose. It never touches your back catalogue and skips videos that are already Shorts.
- How many Shorts does one video give?
- For a video longer than about 12 minutes the AI is asked for 6 to 12, fewer when the material does not hold them. Shorter videos give fewer. You can set an exact number from 1 to 15.
- Does it write the titles?
- Yes. Every clip comes with an AI-written title and description meant for a Short, and the hook text burned over the opening seconds is generated from what is said in that clip.
- What is the difference from the YouTube to Shorts converter page?
- Same pipeline, different question. The converter page is about the link-first flow: paste a YouTube URL, get clips. This page is about the Shorts themselves: length, hooks, captions, titles, posting and doing it on a schedule.
- Is it an AI YouTube Shorts generator or a clipper?
- A clipper: the Shorts are cut from your own footage, so they sound like you and point back to your channel. If you have no long video at all, OpenShorts also has an AI Shorts tab that makes UGC-style videos with AI actors, from $0.65 a video.
- How does it compare with Opus Clip for Shorts?
- Both cut Shorts from long videos and post them to YouTube. Opus Clip has a free plan of 60 credits a month with a watermark and paid plans from $15/month (checked 5 October 2026), and a larger caption-style library. OpenShorts is open source and self-hostable, and hosted from $12/month.
Sources
- YouTube Help: Upload YouTube Shorts (up to 3 minutes, square or vertical), checked 28 October 2026.
- Competitor plans: our comparison data, checked 5 October 2026. See all alternatives.
- Hook placement, caption margin and Autopilot rules are in
hook_placement.py,subtitles.pyandcloud/autopilot.pyat github.com/mutonby/openshorts.