Shotcut for Mac
Free open-source video editor.
Free
In English
Version 26.9.27When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission
Shotcut overview
Shotcut is a free, open-source, cross-platform video editor.
Features:
- Supports oodles of audio and video formats and codecs thanks to FFmpeg (or libav as-built)
- Supports many image formats such as BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, SVG, TGA, TIFF, as well as image sequences
- No import required - native editing
- Frame-accurate seeking for many formats
- Multi-format timeline: mix and match resolutions and frame rates within a project
- Network stream playback (HTTP, HLS, RTMP, RTSP, MMS, UDP)
- Frei0r video generator plugins (e.g., color bars and plasma)
- Blackmagic Design SDI and HDMI for input and preview monitoring
- JACK transport sync
- Deinterlacing
- Detailed media properties panel
- Recent files panel
- Drag-and-drop files from file manager
- Save and load trimmed clip as MLT XML file
- Load and play complex MLT XML file as a clip
- Audio signal level meter
- Volume control
- Scrubbing and transport control
- Flexible UI through dock-able panels
- Encode/transcode to a variety of formats and codecs thanks to FFmpeg (or libav as-built)
- Capture (record) SDI, HDMI, webcam (V4L2), JACK, PulseAudio, IP streams, X11 screen
- Stream (encode to IP) files and any capture source
- Batch encoding with job control
- Create, play, edit, save, load, encode, and stream MLT XML playlists
- Unlimited undo and redo for playlist edits including a history view
- Connect to Melted servers over MVCP TCP protocol
- Control the transport playback of Melted units
- Edit Melted playlists including suport for undo/redo
- OpenGL GPU-based image processing
- Multi-core parallel image processing when not using GPU (and frame-dropping is disabled)
- Video filters: blur, color grading, crop, glow, mirror, saturation, sharpen
- 3-way (shadows, mids, highlights) color wheels for color correction and grading
- Eye dropper tool to pick neutral color for white balancing
- Translated to Spanish, French, Czech, and German
What's new in version 26.9.27
Security Fixes
- Fixed security flaws in upgrade and Whisper downloads (failed HTTPS was retried over HTTP, certificate errors could be ignored, and a downloaded file could be used without a trusted digest).
- Fixed some buffer overflow security issues in PGM/wipe reading in MLT and Set Equirectangular in Shotcut.
- Hardened MP4 parsing in Set Equirectangular in Properties and export job context menu.
Filters and Effects
- Fixed Mask: Draw (Glaxnimate) filter, Operation > Subtract for 8-bit processing mode (broke in version 25.12).
- Fixed using Size, Position & Rotate with Mask: Apply filters (broke in version 25.12).
Audio
- Improved audio quality by removing a conversion to 16-bit integer and keeping the pipeline in 32-bit float.
- Fixed LV2 external audio plugins not loading on Windows (unless LV2_PATH environment var set explicitly).
- Fixed VA-API HEVC hardware encoder on Linux.
Timeline and Clips
- Fixed moving Timeline clip next to another with snap while zoomed out may insert 1 blank frame.
- Fixed copy and pasting a Timeline transition corrupt audio in the pasted transition.
- Fixed marker unexpectedly deleted when moving a clip to the left with Ripple Markers on.
- Fixed keyframes on Timeline > Split after a transition.
- Fixed MLT XML nested clip's length (duration) not updated, now updates when selected but needs manual trim to increase clip.
- Fixed Ctrl+Up and Ctrl+Down cannot change current track when Timeline loses focus.
File and Platform Support
- Fixed Show in Folder not working with non-ASCII characters on Linux.
- Fixed Import Subtitles from File not working on Windows.
- Fixed window title bar missing on Linux with Settings > Display Method > Vulkan.
- Fixed open project on a mounted CIFS/SMB share on Linux kernel 7.1 and above.
Subtitles
- Fixed Subtitles view shows incorrect duration (broke in version 26.8).
- Fixed possible crash when trying to add subtitle item in the last half second of the timeline.
Export and Output
- Fixed Export job may report failure even though file was completed successfully.
- Fixed Player > External Monitor > DeckLink (and related such as UltraStudio) HDMI/SDI may deadlock.
Projects and UI
- Fixed projects deleted from disk still appear in Projects.
- Fixed redundant context menu on text edit controls in filters on Windows (broke in v26.8).
New Features
- Added Automatic Audio Ducking for audio to timeline track Properties.
- Added volume control and audio level meter/indicator to Timeline track headers. This effectively makes the track header column a mixing console without needing to clutter the UI with a new panel. The gain filter this adds to the track is keyframable.
- Added Timeline > Generate > Adjustment Clip. This is a dummy video clip that contributes no video. Instead, its filters apply to the composite of all video tracks below it.
- Added application.triggerAction(name), multitrack.clipStart(), and timeline.split() functions for scripts.
- Added a context menu with Copy to Missing Files dialog and View > Resources.
Settings and Configuration
- Changed Settings > Leave Safe Mode to an always-present Allow External Plugins checkbox that defaults to off. This helps prevent the problem that some VST2 plugins on Windows and macOS are causing startup and shutdown (including export) problems.
- Detect a stuck application startup to automatically disable external plugins.
- Changed Adjust Clip Gain for timeline clips to require Ctrl+Alt (option+command on macOS) to drag. This makes it safe from inadvertent changes while selecting and dragging clips. So, now that setting defaults on again. Also, a tooltip was added to the clip's audio line.
Performance and Improvements
- Improved the performance of the Timeline: moving clips to another track, zooming, undo for many operations (except for ripple move/trim).
- Improved the appearance of the user interface to be more modern with rounded corners in many places.
- New logo
- Upgraded FFmpeg to version 9.0
Shotcut for Mac
Free
In English
Version 26.9.27
Write a detailed review about Shotcut
What customers like
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(27 Reviews of Shotcut)
Comments
User Ratings
Jul 25, 2024
Version: 24.06.26
I've tried almost every video editor and find Shotcut the best of the free or low cost editors. I use the full featured DaVinci Resolve at times and while it can do everything, I'm not comfortable with its complexity. Shotcut, on the other hand, can easily do 95% of what I need. It's not as pretty as some of the other low cost or free video editors but it outshines all of them in performance and features.
Mar 6, 2022
Version: 22.01.30
I used to be a pro video editor on Avid MediaComposer, decades ago, and amongst the free ones Shotcut is the first one I find that resembles a professional tool — and that works (OpenShot seems interesting but always freezes and crashes). It's a bit limited and stutters or doesn't always play additional audio tracks correctly until you reload the project, but hey, it's free! It's good enough for an occasional amateur job.
May 4, 2021
Version: 21.05.01
The link above is for ARM64 ('Apple Silicon') version ONLY, useful on M1 Macs, which of course require macOS 11.x. --> Intel X86 Macs must use the link for 'shotcut-macos-unsigned-210501.dmg' @ https://github.com/mltframework/shotcut/releases/download/v21.05.01/shotcut-macos-unsigned-210501.dmg - - IOW: NO combined version is being offered at this time.
Feb 11, 2021
Version: 21.01.29
This app seems quite useful even if you have some other video editing app... you could use it to convert videos to lots of different formats... including QuickTime Animation with an alpha channel and WebM with an alpha channel... for both of those, you just choose one of the included presets.
You could also make your own preset for ProRes with an alpha channel if you choose the ProRes preset, make sure "Advanced" is selected, go to "Other" and change the text in the box to these lines:
mlt_image_format=rgb24a
pix_fmt=yuva444p10le
vprofile=4444
vendor=apl0
movflags=+write_colr+faststart
Then, just save that as a preset.
It seems good for converting videos to HEVC and AV 1 too... it has the "Quality-based VBR" option were you can set the "Quality" and it changes it to CRF... HandBrake recommends something between 18-28 for HEVC (setting the "Quality" to something between 65% to 47% in Shotcut would set the CRF to that)... so the "Quality" set to 55% (CRF 23) will probably be a good balance for most videos and for more high quality videos you can raise it a bit or lower it a bit for lower quality videos... for lower resolution videos that would be upscaled, it would be a good idea to use somewhat higher quality settings than for 4k, if it's a high quality SD video.
If you want a "slow" preset for HEVC or H.264 (to encode it more slowly to get a somewhat higher quality), just change one of the existing presets (just change the "preset=medium" to "preset=slow" under "Other") and save it as a new one.
Also, you can edit WebM and even WMV directly in it, without having to convert it first.
The interface maybe seems kind of "clunky", like it often seem to be the case with apps that are ported from Linux... but it's a useful app.
So 5 stars for the usefulness... although the interface could probably be significantly improved... but at least it doesn't require XQuartz like Linux ports sometimes do... so it seems like a relatively decent Linux port.
Sep 15, 2020
Version: 20.09.13
The following statement in your overview is no longer true, so you might think about removing it: "Note: Since the application is not signed, you need to Control-click the app icon and choose Open from the context menu the first time you run it."
