ClipEdit

A free, open-source alternative to Clipchamp.
A fast, minimal clip editor for Windows, built right into the right-click menu.

Right-click a video, drag the [ ] handles, and export. That's it.

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Why

Cutting a few seconds out of a recording shouldn't mean opening a full video editor. Windows' built-in option, Clipchamp, is a heavy, cluttered editor: it wants you signed in, takes a while to load, buries a simple trim under timelines, templates and stock media, and keeps steering you toward a paid plan.

ClipEdit does one thing and does it fast. It's completely free and open source, with no account, no subscription, no watermark and no upsells. It opens straight from File Explorer, plays the video, lets you mark the part you want and saves it as a new file. The original is never touched.

	ClipEdit	Clipchamp
Price	Free, forever	Free tier + paid plans
Open source	✅	❌
Account / sign-in	Not needed	Microsoft account
Interface	A player, a timeline and an Export button	Full editor with templates, stock media and upsells

Features

• Right-click → Edit with ClipEdit: a top-level entry in the Windows 11 context menu for every common video format, not hidden under Show more options.
• Trim by dragging: [ and ] handles on a thumbnail timeline. The video previews the exact frame while you drag, and you can slide the whole selection.
• Crop to any aspect ratio: drag the sliders on the top, bottom and sides of the picture, or pick a preset: Free, 16:9, 9:16 (Shorts / TikTok / Reels), 1:1 or 4:3. Everything outside the crop is dimmed and grayed out, so you see the final framing before you export.
• Frame-accurate export: clips are re-encoded to H.264, so cuts land exactly where you put them, not on the nearest keyframe.
• GPU acceleration: NVIDIA NVENC, AMD AMF or Intel Quick Sync, detected automatically. If the GPU fails, the export falls back to the CPU.
• Export flow:
  1. A confirmation shows the new length, estimated size and encoder.
  2. You name the file and pick where it goes.
  3. A progress bar shows the ETA and speed, and you can cancel.
• Opens almost anything: MP4, MOV, MKV, WebM, AVI, WMV, FLV, MPEG, TS/M2TS, 3GP and OGV. Formats the player can't show directly get a quick preview copy automatically.
• Recently opened: a home screen with thumbnails and length badges. Each video has one-click buttons and a right-click menu to copy the file, open its folder or delete it.
• Native Windows 11 look: a dark theme with a Mica sidebar.

Install

1. Download ClipEdit-Setup-x.y.z.exe from the latest release.
2. Run it. ClipEdit installs per-user, so no admin rights are needed. It adds Start menu and desktop shortcuts.
3. Optional: open Settings → Add to context menu.
   • Windows asks for administrator approval once. This lets it trust ClipEdit's self-signed menu extension (the certificate is added to LocalMachine\TrustedPeople).
   • Turning the setting off, or uninstalling ClipEdit, removes the menu entry again.

Windows may show a SmartScreen warning because the installer isn't code-signed. Click More info → Run anyway.

Keyboard shortcuts

Action	Keys
Play / pause	Space
Skip 5 seconds	← →
Step one frame	Shift + ← →
Set start / end at the playhead	I / O
Jump to start / end	Home / End
Crop mode on / off	C
Finish cropping	Enter or Esc
Open a video	Ctrl + O
Export	Ctrl + E
Close the video	Ctrl + W

Build from source

You need Node.js 20 or newer, Python 3 with Pillow (only to regenerate icons), and Visual Studio 2022 with the Windows 10/11 SDK (only for the context-menu extension).

npm install
npm run fetch-ffmpeg     # downloads FFmpeg 7.1.1 (essentials) into resources/ffmpeg
npm run build:shell      # optional: builds + signs the Explorer menu MSIX into resources/shell
npm run dev              # run with hot reload
npm run dist             # build the installer into release/

build:shell creates its own self-signed certificate the first time. The private key stays in shell/build/ and is git-ignored. Never share it.

Tests

npm run typecheck
npm test                         # unit tests (Vitest)
npm run fixtures                 # generates the test videos (once)
npm run build && npm run e2e     # end-to-end tests that drive the real app (Playwright)

Project layout

Path	What's inside
src/main	Electron main process: FFmpeg jobs (probe, thumbnails, preview, export), GPU detection, the media streaming protocol, settings, Explorer integration
src/renderer	The UI (React): Home, Settings, Editor, timeline and export dialogs
src/shared	Pure logic covered by unit tests: trim math, FFmpeg arguments, progress parsing, formats
shell/	Windows 11 context-menu extension: an IExplorerCommand COM DLL hosted by a signed MSIX package

Why FFmpeg 7.1.1?

ClipEdit pins FFmpeg 7.1.1 because its NVENC support works with NVIDIA drivers from roughly version 531 onward. Newer FFmpeg builds need driver 610 or newer, which would silently disable GPU export on many PCs.

License

ClipEdit is released under the MIT License.

ClipEdit is an independent project. It isn't affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft. Clipchamp is a trademark of Microsoft.

The installer bundles FFmpeg (the GPL build by gyan.dev), which is licensed separately under the GPLv3. FFmpeg's source code is available at ffmpeg.org.