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If you have a podcast, interview, webinar, YouTube video, or recorded stream, Podcast Shorts finds the best moments and turns them into short clips automatically. No manual scrubbing required. You can also tell it what to look for—a topic, a speaker, a specific moment, or a target length—and it will clip to your direction. This guide covers the full workflow, from uploading your source video to exporting finished clips.

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Step 1: Get your source video ready

Podcast Shorts works with two types of input:
  • A video file: upload directly from your device (MP4, MOV, or AVI)
  • A YouTube URL: paste a public or unlisted YouTube link
YouTube links must be Public or Unlisted. Private videos won’t work. If the URL contains “live”, click the link first and copy the redirected URL instead.
For best results, use a recording up to about an hour long. Longer uploads are automatically handled in highlight-clip mode, which focuses on extracting the strongest moments rather than processing the entire runtime.

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Step 2: Generate clips

1

Open Podcast Shorts

On iOS, tap Podcast Shorts from the Captions home screen. On Web, select Podcast Shorts from the project options.
2

Upload your video or paste a URL

Tap Upload and choose your file, or tap the link icon and paste your YouTube URL.
3

Tell Podcast Shorts what you want (optional)

Describe what you’re looking for in plain language—for example, “pull the moments where we talk about pricing,” “focus on the guest,” or “trim it to 30 seconds.” Podcast Shorts will follow your prompt as closely as it can when selecting and trimming the clip. If you skip this step, it picks the most engaging moments for you.
4

Wait for processing

Podcast Shorts analyzes your video to find the most engaging segments, looking for moments with strong hooks, clear points, or high energy. This can take up to an hour for longer videos.You don’t need to keep the app open. Captions will notify you when your clips are ready.
5

Review your clips

Once processing is done, you’ll see your generated clip. Tap to preview it before deciding what to keep.

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Step 3: Edit and refine

Each clip is delivered as a project with an AI Edit style already applied, and it opens in the editor so you can keep refining it. Before exporting:
  • Trim the start or end if the clip needs a tighter hook or a cleaner ending
  • Add captions by going to the caption editor and generating captions for the clip. Bold captions significantly increase watch time on short-form content.
  • Adjust the style to apply a caption or AI Edit style that fits your brand → Add Captions to Boost Engagement
  • Choose your orientation. Clips can be produced vertical (9:16) for TikTok, Reels, and Shorts, or horizontal—useful for multi-speaker podcasts and YouTube.

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Step 4: Export

Tap Export on the clip you want to keep. Clips export in the orientation you selected—vertical or horizontal—ready to post.

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Tips for better clips

  • Podcasts and interviews are the best source material. They’re full of quotable moments and the language is already conversational.
  • Prompt for what you actually want. If you know the topic, speaker, or moment you’re after, say so up front—you’ll get a more relevant clip than letting the AI guess.
  • Look for contrast. Clips that shift from a problem to a solution, or from a question to an answer, tend to perform best.
  • The hook matters most. The first 3 seconds determines whether someone keeps watching. If a clip doesn’t start strong, trim to a better moment.
  • Add captions before posting. Shorts without captions lose a large portion of their potential audience.

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Supported languages

iOS: Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish Web: Arabic, Chinese (simplified + traditional), Danish, Dutch, English, Filipino, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Hinglish, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Tamil, Turkish, Ukrainian
Last modified on June 22, 2026