A tour of the editor

What each part of the editor is for, in one picture.

The editor is where you watch and change your video. It looks busy at first, but there are only six parts.

1. Top bar

   Switch between pages: Sources (your files), Edit, Package (thumbnail and title) and Shorts.

   On the left, the folder button takes you back to your other projects. The trash button is Move project to Trash. Cutaway asks first, and you can still get the project back from the Trash.

   On the right are Settings (the gear), the Command menu (or press Command + K), Undo and Redo, Presets (save and reuse a look), First cut and Export.

2. Preview

   The big picture. It shows exactly what your finished video will look like at this moment.

3. Add tools

   Buttons to add things at the playhead: a zoom, a camera layout, a blur over private info, a callout or text. The shield button looks for private info for you, like emails and passwords. See Let Cutaway find private info.

4. Play controls

   Play and pause (or press the Space bar). The arrows jump to the previous or next cut. The scissors cut out a part.

5. Timeline

   Your whole video from start (left) to end (right). The purple line is the playhead: the moment you’re looking at. Click anywhere to move it. Animations show as purple blocks on the text & effects row. Read more in Timeline and clips.

6. Sidebar

   The icons down the right side open panels to change how things look and sound. Click an icon to open its panel.

The sidebar panels

Icon	Panel	What it changes
Frame	Background	The color or picture behind your video, and its corners. More
Arrow	Cursor	How the mouse pointer looks. More
Camera	Camera	The shape, size and look of your camera. More
Captions	Captions	Words on screen. More
Lines	Transcript	Edit by text. More
Speaker	Audio	Voice, volume and music. More
T	Text and titles	Titles and name labels. More
⌘	Keyboard shortcuts	Show the keys you pressed. More
Path	Animations	How fast zooms move. More
Speech bubble	Ask AI	Ask for changes in plain words. More
Sparkle	AI review	What the first cut changed. More
Clock	History	Earlier versions of your video. More

Hover over any button to see what it does.

Simple and Advanced timeline

Next to the play controls is an Advanced switch. Leave it off while you’re learning. The simple timeline shows your text and effects, your video, and your music.

Turn Advanced on to see every layer separately, such as layouts, zooms, blurs and speed changes. See Simple and Advanced timeline.