How to Clip YouTube Shorts

Turning your long-form videos into viral YouTube Shorts is one of the smartest ways to breathe new life into your content and grow your channel. It's a powerful method to reach viewers who frequent the Shorts feed and introduce them to your personality and value. This guide breaks down how to clip YouTube Shorts, from using the platform's simple built-in tools to more advanced editing methods for creating high-impact, shareable content.

Why Clipping YouTube Shorts Should Be Your Next Move

Before we get into the "how," let's quickly cover the "why." If you're not repurposing your longer videos into Shorts, you're leaving a massive opportunity on the table. Here's what you gain:

• Increased Reach and Discovery: The YouTube Shorts algorithm works differently from the algorithm for long-form video. It pushes content to a massive, scrolling audience, giving you a chance to get in front of millions of new viewers who have never seen your channel before.
• Content with Zero Extra Effort: You’ve already done the hard work of creating a fantastic long-form video. Clipping moments from it is the ultimate "work smarter, not harder" strategy. You're creating new assets from something that already exists.
• Low-Risk “Trailers” for Your Main Content: A great Short can act as a teaser or a trailer, driving interested viewers directly to the full-length video it came from. YouTube even adds an automatic link back to the source video, making this connection seamless.
• Testing Ground for New Ideas: Not sure if your audience will respond to an idea for a longer video? Create a few Shorts around the topic first. If they get a lot of engagement, you know you've got a winner for a full-length piece.

The Easiest Method: Creating Shorts with YouTube’s Built-In Tools

The fastest way to get started is by using the tools YouTube provides right inside its mobile app. This method is incredibly easy and perfect for creating clips on the fly without needing any external software. There are two primary ways to do this: "Edit into a Short" for your own videos and "Clip" for anyone's video.

How to Clip a Short from Your Own Long-Form Video (The Remix Tool)

This is the most common and powerful way for creators to spin their existing content into Shorts. It's designed for you to leverage your own library.

1. Open Your Video on Mobile: Grab your phone and open the YouTube app. Navigate to your channel and select the long-form video you want to clip.
2. Find the "Remix" Button: Directly below your video’s title, you'll see a row of buttons like "Like," "Dislike," "Share," and "Download." Look for one called Remix, which often has a plus-sign icon. If you don't see it, it's possible the feature isn't enabled for that specific video (for example, if it's set to private).
3. Select "Edit into a Short": After tapping Remix, a menu will pop up. Choose "Edit into a Short." This will open the Shorts creation editor.
4. Select Your Clip: The editor presents a timeline of your original video. You can drag the handles on the timeline to select the exact segment you want to turn into a Short. The maximum length is 60 seconds. You can toggle between 15-second and 60-second modes in the top right corner.
5. Fine-Tune and Decorate: Tap "Next" to move to the final editing screen. Here, you can add text overlays, apply filters, and even add trending music or sounds over your original audio - just like creating a Short from scratch. This is a great place to add a bit of context or a catchy title directly onto the video.
6. Publish Your Short: Once you're happy with your clip, write a compelling caption (always include the #shorts hashtag), choose your visibility settings, and tap "Upload Short." That's it! Your new Short will now be live on your channel and will automatically feature a link back to the big video it came from.

Pro Tip: This method is fantastic for quick turnaround, but its editing capabilities are basic. For more control over captions, reframing, and pacing, you'll want to use an external editor.

How to Use the Public "Clip" Feature

You may have also seen a "Clip" button with a pair of scissors on other people’s videos. While this isn’t for creating a *YouTube Short* that appears on your channel's Shorts feed, it's for creating a small, shareable snippet (5-60 seconds) that lives in a separate tab and can be shared via a link.

This is more of a viewer tool for sharing your favorite moments, but as a creator, you can use it to highlight specific moments from your own long videos and share those links in Community posts or on other social media platforms to drive people to a key point.

Level Up: Creating Better Clips with a Video Editor

While YouTube's built-in tool is convenient, professional creators looking for maximum engagement often take their editing offline. Using a desktop or mobile video editor gives you pinpoint control over every aspect of your Short, from dynamic captions to perfect framing.

Step 1: Strategically Identify Your Best Moments

The first step happens before you even open an editing app. Go through your long-form videos with a critical eye, looking for "golden nugget" moments. A great Short clip should feel complete on its own, delivering a single, satisfying piece of value. Look for things like:

• Powerful Punchlines: The climax of a joke or a satisfying conclusion to a story.
• "Aha!" Moments: A single, game-changing tip, statistic, or piece of advice.
• Emotional Peaks: Moments of shock, laughter, surprise, or inspiration.
• Quick-Cut Montages: Visually interesting sequences that can be sped up for a high-energy clip.

A pro tactic: Check your video's Audience Retention graph in YouTube Studio. See those spikes and bumps where people re-watched a section? Those are proven moments of high engagement - and perfect candidates for a Short.

Step 2: Download Your Original Video

To edit your video, you need the actual file. The easiest and highest-quality way to get it is directly from your own YouTube Studio.

• Navigate to YouTube Studio on your desktop.
• Click on the Content tab in the left-hand menu.
• Hover over the video you want to use and click the three-dot menu icon (Options).
• Select Download.

This lets you download the full-resolution video file that you originally uploaded, giving you the best possible quality to work with.

Step 3: Edit and Reframe for a Vertical World

This is where the magic happens. A great clipped Short isn't just a horizontal video with black bars on the top and bottom. It's been reimagined for a vertical screen. Here’s your checklist using some popular free and paid editing tools:

Popular Tools:

• Mobile: CapCut (the industry favorite for short-form video), VN Video Editor, InShot.
• Desktop: DaVinci Resolve (incredibly powerful and free), CapCut Desktop, Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro.

Editing To-Do List:

1. Set Your Project to a 9:16 Aspect Ratio: This is the first thing you should do. Open your editor of choice and create a new project with the dimensions 1080x1920 pixels. This is the standard vertical video format.
2. Reframe Your Shot: When you drop your horizontal (16:9) video into the vertical (9:16) timeline, you'll need to crop in. Zoom and reposition the video so your main subject (usually your face or a key object) is always centered and clearly visible. If you move around a lot, you might have to use "keyframes" to track your movement, though this is a more advanced technique.
3. Add Burned-In Captions: This is not optional. The vast majority of Shorts are watched without sound. Your message needs to come across even on silent. Apps like CapCut have an "Auto Captions" feature that works brilliantly. Customize the font and color to match your brand, make them big, bold, and easy to read.
4. Create a Strong Hook (in the First 1 Second): Trim your clip to start *right* at the action. Cut out any rambling intro. Start with the most intriguing question, a shocking statement, or a visually arresting shot to stop people from scrolling.
5. Be Relentless with Trimming: Cut out every single tiny pause, "um," "uh," or deep breath. Short-form video thrives on fast pacing. Jump cuts are your friend here - they keep the energy high and the viewer locked in.

The Ultimate Strategy: Systemize Your Clipping Workflow

Instead of randomly finding clips after the fact, a game-changing move is to plan for your Shorts during the creation of your long-form videos. Think like a late-night talk show host: your main video is the full episode, and your Shorts are the viral web segments.

Plan "Clippable" Moments in Your Script

When you script your long video, intentionally write in 5-7 standalone segments that could work as their own Mini-Story. If you're creating a listicle like "Top 5 Mistakes to Avoid When Starting a Business," you've already got five built-in Shorts. Each point can become its own 45-second video. This approach makes the editing process so much faster.

Build a Content Pipeline

One 15-minute video can easily fuel your Shorts content for over a week:

• 5 Highlight Clips: One clip for each main point in your video.
• 1 Teaser Clip: A short, punchy clip from the intro that asks a question.
• 1 Behind-the-Scenes Clip: A funny outtake or quick moment from the recording session.
• 1 Comment Reply Short: Find a great question in your comments and create a Short answering it.

Suddenly, you have eight new pieces of content from a single recording session. That is the kind of leverage that helps brands and creators scale their presence efficiently.

Final Thoughts

Creating YouTube Shorts from your existing videos is no longer a cool trick - it's an essential part of a smart, sustainable content strategy. Whether you're using the simple Remix tool for quick and easy clips or dedicating time to craft polished, captioned moments in a video editor, you’re maximizing the value of your hard work and reaching a whole new audience.

As a team that lives and breathes social media, we know that creating the content is only half the battle. Once you have a system for clipping all those amazing Shorts, you still have to organize, plan, and schedule them without the chaos. We actually built Postbase because we were tired of wrestling with older tools not designed for short-form video. Being able to drag-and-drop your YouTube Shorts, TikToks, and Reels on one clean visual calendar changes your entire workflow, keeping you consistent and focused on making great content, not just managing it.