Paste a YouTube URL. AI finds the highlights. Get 9:16 vertical clips in minutes — no editing required.
Generate YouTube Shorts FreeNo credit card required · Works with any youtube.com or youtu.be link
Drop in any youtube.com or youtu.be link. ClipIt fetches the video directly from YouTube at up to 1080p — no manual download, no file upload, no browser extension. The entire ingest step happens on our servers.
The highlight detection model analyzes audio amplitude, speech intensity, and pacing across the full video. It identifies peaks, hooks, and narrative turning points — the segments most likely to perform on a short-form feed.
Each detected highlight is automatically cropped to 9:16 portrait orientation. Burned-in subtitles are generated from the audio transcript and rendered directly into the video. Clips are ready to upload to YouTube Shorts, TikTok, or Instagram Reels without any further editing.
ClipIt's highlight detection focuses on energy peaks — moments where audio amplitude spikes and speech intensity increases. A YouTube video lecture may have long stretches of steady narration punctuated by short bursts of emphasis; those bursts are strong short-form candidates. Similarly, a YouTube interview tends to have clear energy differentials between setup and punchline — the AI targets the punchline.
Hook quality matters more than raw energy. The first two to three seconds of each candidate clip are scored independently. A clip that opens mid-sentence, mid-breath, or mid-thought will score lower than one that opens on a clear statement or question. This keeps the generated YouTube Shorts coherent from the first frame.
Sentence boundaries are respected during cutting. ClipIt avoids slicing a clip mid-sentence to prevent abrupt audio drops. The goal is narrative flow: each 9:16 short derived from your YouTube video should feel like a self-contained moment, not a fragment. Clips typically run 30 to 90 seconds — long enough to establish context, short enough for a Shorts feed.
Every clip exported from a YouTube video is 9:16 vertical at 1080×1920 — the native resolution for YouTube Shorts, TikTok, and Instagram Reels. The output codec is h264 MP4 (CRF 22 baseline), which uploads cleanly to all three platforms without transcoding errors.
Subtitles are burned directly into the video frame. There is no separate SRT file to manage or upload; the captions are rendered into the output and will display on any device and platform that plays the clip. The subtitle style can be adjusted in the ClipIt editor before export — font, size, and position are all configurable.
Source quality is preserved up to 1080p. ClipIt fetches your YouTube video at the highest available resolution via yt-dlp, so a 1080p YouTube video produces a 1080p 9:16 output. The resulting file is ready for direct upload — no re-encoding on your end required.
ClipIt is currently the only AI shorts tool with native Bilibili URL support alongside YouTube. Paste a BV-prefixed Bilibili link and the exact same AI pipeline applies — highlight detection, 9:16 reframe, auto-subtitles, batch export. No other tool in this category handles Bilibili directly. If you produce content on both platforms or want to repurpose Chinese-language YouTube videos for Douyin, ClipIt handles both from the same dashboard. See the Bilibili to Shorts page for details.
New ClipIt accounts receive signup credits you can spend on YouTube (or Bilibili) videos immediately — no credit card required. Exports on the free tier carry no watermark, and generated clips do not expire. There is no 3-day deletion window; your YouTube Shorts clips stay in your dashboard until you delete them.
If you process higher volumes, the Pro plan is $19/mo (monthly) or $15/mo billed annually, saving 20%. Pro includes 300 credits per month. Credits cover generated clips, not raw video minutes, so a single long YouTube video that produces five clips costs five credits. Start free and upgrade when you need volume.
ClipIt supports YouTube videos up to 3 hours in length. Most content — tutorials, interviews, podcasts, gaming sessions — falls well within this range. Longer videos take more time to process; you will receive a dashboard notification when your clips are ready rather than waiting on a loading screen.
No. ClipIt fetches YouTube content server-side via yt-dlp, which can only access publicly available videos. Private, unlisted, and age-restricted YouTube videos that require authentication cannot be processed. The video must be set to public on YouTube for ClipIt to ingest it.
Yes. Every generated clip opens in the ClipIt editor where you can adjust the subtitle text, tweak the clip start and end timestamps, and change the template style before exporting. Subtitle edits are reflected in the final exported 9:16 MP4. Changes are non-destructive — the original job is preserved.
The main structural difference is Bilibili support: ClipIt is the only AI YouTube to Shorts tool that also accepts Bilibili URLs natively. On the free tier, ClipIt exports without a watermark and clips do not expire — OpusClip's free exports are watermarked and expire after 3 days. For a detailed feature and pricing breakdown, see the ClipIt vs OpusClip comparison page.
Get 9:16 YouTube Shorts in minutes. Free credits included — no card needed.
Also supports Bilibili to Shorts · Free credits · No watermark