How to cut a long video into Shorts

In effect since August 20, 2026.

Cutting a long video into Shorts is less about editing and more about picking the right moment. This page explains the criteria we use, so you can apply them even when you cut by hand.

The step by step

1. Start from the speech, not from the clock

Cutting every sixty seconds gives you clips that open mid sentence. A clip has to start where a sentence starts and end where another one ends. In Upar.io this is automatic: the transcript marks the pauses and the cut lands on them.

2. Pick moments with a hook

Measuring what performs, four signals show up again and again at the start of clips that earn: a question followed by an answer, a concrete number in the speech, a hook word (secret, mistake, never, truth, money) and fast, dense speech with no long pause. That combination is what scores each clip in our tool.

3. Reframe without cutting off the speaker

The long video is 16:9 and a Short is 9:16: more than half the width goes away. Cutting through the geometric centre throws out the person talking whenever they are not in the middle of the frame. The framing has to follow the face, and switch when the conversation switches.

4. Burn the captions, and keep them high on screen

Most people watch with the sound off, so captions are not decoration. They also need to sit above the strip the Shorts interface covers with the title and buttons, or they disappear on the very device people are watching on.

5. Cut the pauses

Silence and long breaths sink retention. Removing the pauses shortens the clip and keeps the pace from the first second to the last.

6. Publish with the title and description ready

Short title, with a concrete noun and, where it fits, a question. Titles around thirty characters tend to pull far more views than long ones, because the feed is read in milliseconds.

How long it takes

By hand, a well made clip takes fifteen to thirty minutes between choosing the moment, reframing, captioning and exporting. Automated, a one hour video becomes ten clips in a few minutes, and your job becomes choosing which ones to publish.

Whose video you can cut

Clipping someone else's video is a copyright question, not a tool question. We keep a public list of 216 channels that live with clips, with the rule each one follows, and a page explaining what the law allows.

Try it with your video

The first video is free and asks for no card. Paste a link now.